해외 임무 수행 중인 함정 내 코로나19 집단 감염자의 후유증 분석 = Analysis of the sequelae of COVID-19 group infections in a vessel carrying out overseas missions

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Objective: Vessels are more susceptible to infectious diseases due to their special environment of dense, close, and airtight space. If a group outbreak of COVID-19 occurs within a vessel, not only physical but also psychological factors can affect the confirmed patients of COVID-19 more severely than those on the land. Therefore, this study attempted to investigate the physical and psychological sequelae of COVID-19 group outbreak which occurred in a vessel performing overseas missions, and to compare them with those in general situations.
Method: Surveys were conducted twice in the Navy Headquarter Infirmary on the confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the OO Unit that had performed overseas missions. The change in total number of symptoms and the degree of improvement for each symptom between the two surveys were analyzed. The association between physical and psychological symptoms was also investigated.
Results: Among the 272 soldiers in the OO Unit who were confirmed with COVID-19, 181 were studied and 91 refused the survey. The average number of physical sequelae decreased from 2.96 to 2.13 between the surveys(p<0.001), but the average number of psychological sequelae showed no significant difference between the surveys(p=0.828). In addition, the more physical symptoms they had, the more psychological symptoms they presented in both surveys.
Conclusion: The patterns of sequelae from group outbreak of COVID-19 occuring within a vessel were similar to those in general situations. In addition, psychologic care and support should be considered for persons who complain of several phycial sequelae, even when they don't explicitly complain of psychological symptoms.