Prevalence of neurological symptoms in patients with SARS-CoV-2: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Introduction: The novel coronavirus, dubbed SARS-CoV-2, which causes the COVID-19 disease, was detected on December 31, 2019, in Wuhan, China. Objective: To perform a systematic review with a meta-analysis about the prevalence of headache and myalgia in patients with SARS-CoV-2. Methods: High-sensitivity research was conducted on the main platforms (Medline by PubMed, Embase (Elsevier), and Cochrane Library). The entire versions of the manuscripts were analyzed by three independent researchers, and only observational studies describing the symptoms of the selected sample were included. Results: 1,782 studies were identified, which were submitted to exclusion criteria, remaining only 62 manuscripts to do qualitative synthesis and metanalysis. Of the 28,412 patients diagnosed with SARS-CoV-2, 12% (95% CI 9% - 16%) presented headache and 19% (95% CI 14% - 24%) presented myalgia, both with statistical significance and high heterogeneity (I2=97.0%, p<0.01 and I2=98.0%, p<0.01, respectively). Conclusion: It was noticed that headache and myalgia were the most ordinary neurological symptoms, but it is important to emphasize the prevalence of symptoms in different degrees of severity of the patients.