P224 Using the Sit to Stand tests to assess functional status and oxygen desaturations following COVID-19

IntroductionCOVID-19 leads to persistent symptoms and in some instances oxygen desaturation (>3%) (Greenhalgh et al, 2020). Field walking tests are used in respiratory diseases to assess oxygen desaturation and exercise capacity due to their high reliability (Hernandes et al, 2014). However, under COVID-19 restrictions these tests became problematic to perform due to limitations of space, time, and equipment. This project aims to investigate sit to stand test’s (1STS & 5STS) in comparison to the Incremental shuttle walk test (ISWT) to assess function and oxygen desaturation (SpO2) in patients following COVID19 infection. In addition, to investigate if there is a difference in results to patients who received hospital care during the acute stage of COVID-19, to those who were managed in the community.MethodsPatients attending out-patient COVID-19 rehabilitation comprised of those hospitalised for acute COVID-19 and community managed referrals. Oxygen saturation was recorded directly before and after the tests. An independent T- test was used to measure group means for statistical difference and Pearson’s correlation was used to compare 5STS, 1STS and ISWT performance outcomes.ResultsTwenty-nine patients were eligible for analysis, mean (SD) age 54 (7.8) years (65.5% female and 69% White British) 7 (24%) participants had hospital admissions with a mean time from discharge to assessment of 347 days. There were desaturations of >3% in 3 (10%) participants during the 1STS and 9 (38%) in the ISWT and no desaturations of >3% during the 5STS. The difference between patient groups and SPO2 desaturations are non-significant at 0.559 for ISWT, 0.447 for 1STS and 0.447 5STS. There was no significant difference between SpO2, RPE and BORG for patient groups in each test condition. There was a strong correlation (R=-0.88) between the 1STS repetitions and 5STS time. There was a moderate correlation between ISWT and both STS tests (5STS R=-0.53 and 1STSR=-0.66).ConclusionsThe 5STS does not detect desaturation, whilst the ISWT detected meaningful desaturation in 38% of the population. There was a strong correlation with respect to performance on both STS tests, but not with the ISWT.