Changes in cardiovascular health and physical functioning in non‐hospitalized, adult COVID ‐19 patients after 3 years of follow‐up

Long-term cardiovascular consequences of COVID-19 remain unclear, particularly in non-hospitalized individuals. We investigated longitudinal changes (~3 years) in cardiovascular risk factors, cardiac biomarkers, physical functioning, and activity in non-hospitalized COVID-19 individuals versus age- and sex-matched controls. Assessments were performed in 2021 (~6 months post-infection) and repeated 3 years after initial SARS-CoV-2 infection among 101 non-hospitalized COVID-19 participants and 101 healthy age- and sex-matched controls. Multiple imputation was adopted to adjust for missing data due to drop-out. Based on the absence (-) or presence (+) of infections during follow-up, four groups were created: COVID-19/- (n = 45), COVID-19/+ (n = 56), Control/- (n = 29), and Control/+ (n = 72). Additionally, sex-stratified analyses were performed. No changes were found in parameters related to cardiovascular risk factors, cardiac biomarkers, physical functioning and physical activity across the 3-year follow-up, showing no time × group effects for any of the outcomes (all p-values >0.05). Sex-stratified analyses and complete-case sensitivity analysis reinforced our results. Overall, we found no changes in cardiovascular risk factors, cardiac biomarkers, physical functioning and activity across a 3-year follow-up in non-hospitalized COVID-19 individuals compared to healthy controls, independent of infections during follow-up. This suggests that non-hospitalized COVID-19 did not induce long-term deleterious changes in cardiovascular health or physical characteristics.