Statistics, information, and research about Post COVID-19 condition in Sweden now available on the Portal
Published: 2021-09-06
The Swedish COVID-19 Data Portal is now launching a section (including graphs, maps and tables) depicting statistics related to Post COVID-19 condition in Sweden both in English and Swedish. The visualisations are based on data freely available from The National Board of Health and Welfare, related to diagnoses U08.9, U09.9 and Z86.1A. The page also shows a short background, an overview of research projects focused on Post COVID-19 condition funded by funding agencies in Sweden, and links to recent scientific publications related to the topic (where at least one co-author is affiliated with a Swedish university or research institute). Please note that the lists of projects and publications list are manually curated, and may not be exhaustive.
The current pandemic has challenged healthcare and societies worldwide over the last two years. During the acute infectious phase of COVID-19, the severity of symptoms may vary from mild to severe. While most patients recover after the initial infection, some patients exhibit long-lasting or delayed symptoms after this initial stage. Symptoms may include, for example, deep fatigue, joint pain, ‘brain fog’, and heart palpitations (Brodin 2021; Marx 2021). The condition has been referred to by a number of terms, such as Post COVID-19 condition, Post-COVID, and Long COVID. In Swedish it has been referred to as långtidscovid, postcovid, post-akut covid-19, långtidssjuka vid covid-19 and sena effekter av covid-19, among others. On this new page, we use the term ’Post COVID-19 condition’ when referring to the condition in English, and ‘Postcovid’ in Swedish.
The primary source of data regarding COVID-19 is the National Patient Register (NPR). The NPR includes all in-patient care in Sweden, as well as outpatient doctors visits. However, the NPR does not cover all primary care (visits to e.g. GP are excluded).
The data related to Post COVID-19 condition is updated once a month, on the second Wednesday of the month. The relevant pages on the COVID-19 Data Portal will be updated soon after data becomes available. All data presented in the pages are available for download here. Additional data can be requested from the corresponding registers by researchers fulfilling the requirements for access (the guidelines for which are available here).
Data
- Raw data used to generated statistics for the pages: available for download here.
- For more information on Post COVID-19 condition in Sweden, please see this section of the The National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen) website and their report on Post-COVID condition (published April 2021).
- Classification of ICD codes for Covid-19.
- WHO publications Expanding our understanding of post COVID-19 condition: report of a WHO webinar - 9 February 2021.
- (Swedish resource for decision makers and healthcare staff) Postcovid - kvarstående eller sena symtom efter covid-19. Stöd till beslutsfattare och personal i hälso- och sjukvården (del 2).