Headache is a predictive and prognostic protective factor for COVID-19: a retrospective study

Background With the SARS-CoV-2 virus epidemic in these years, people have become accustomed to living with the virus. However, many people have been infected at least once. Therefore, the early warning factors before repeated infection play a vital role. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between headache factors and the occurrence and prognosis of COVID-19, as there is a clinical need to identify predictive indicators related to the disease. Methods This retrospective study analyzed routine epidemiological and clinical data on 298 COVID-19 patients at the Mobile Cabin Hospital in Shanghai, China from 3 April to 1 June 2022. The primary observations of interest were the viral load shedding time, including the time to first re-negative nucleic acid results and the time to two consecutive negative nucleic acid results. Results Of the 298 patients, 149 experienced headache symptoms, while the other 149 did not. Using advanced statistical methods, a significant effect of headache factor (p < 0.001) and disease severity (p < 0.001) on patients' load-shedding time was found. Moreover, patients in the headache group were able to reduce their viral load (p < 0.001) and stop the virus from multiplying. The prognostic index of the patients was also calculated, revealing a significant difference in PI for patients in the headache and non-headache groups. Conclusion There was a significant protective effect of headache factors in predicting infection in COVID-19 patients and the prognostic level of patient recovery.