What is the quality of life in patients with long COVID compared to a healthy control group?

Abstract

IntroductionMany patients have prolonged symptoms after COVID-19 infection, which can affect patient quality of life (QOL). The aim of this study is to determine the quality of life in patients with long COVID, compared with healthy controls.Material and methodsThe study was a prospective cross-sectional study using an anonymous online survey. The SF-36 questionnaire was chosen for quality of life measurement. The survey was distributed through the Facebook social media platform targeting groups of patients with long COVID. The control group was made up of physiotherapy and physical education students.ResultsThere was a significant difference in physical function, with a mean score of 94.9 (±9.4) among the students, compared to long COVID patients with a mean score of 66.2 (±25.4) (p < 0.001). A similar result was found in the physical role (p < 0.001). The overall quality of life score for college students was 578.0 (±111.9), and the overall score for patients with long COVID was 331.9 (±126.9).ConclusionsPatients with long COVID had a lower quality of life compared to the healthy control group, and this was associated with the negative effect of long-COVID. Lower quality of life in patients with long COVID is an important therapeutic goal, which requires attention.

Italian good practice recommendations on management of persons with Long-COVID

“…Long-COVID can affect multiple systems including cardiovascular, pulmonary, metabolic, coagulation and hematologic, renal, gastrointestinal, musculoskeletal, neurologic, and psychiatric disorders, with significant impacts on morbidity and mortality ( 1 – 4 ). A recent study also reported a significantly lower quality of life for Long-COVID patients compared to a healthy control group ( 5 ). Ongoing low-grade inflammation has been hypothesized to cause these symptoms, but the pathology remains largely unknown, knowledge on the best tools for its evaluation and diagnosis is still incomplete, and treatments are primarily based on symptoms relief.…”

EuroQol-5D-3L in Long Covid patients After Supplementation with EchA Marine®, a Sea Urchin Eggs Extract: a double-blinded, multicentrical study.

“…The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a signi cant number of cases of Long COVID syndrome, which can persist for months and substantially impact patients' quality of life [3] . Treatment of Long COVID can be challenging, and existing options have had limited success [20,27] . This is the rst multicenter, double-blind, intervention study assessing the quality of life in Long COVID patients, and we have demonstrated that the dietary supplement EchA Marine® can signi cantly enhance the quality of life of these patients, particularly as regards pain and discomfort; notably improving their quality of life and ability to have a better mobility.…”

“…Overall, the EuroQol has proven to be a valuable tool for assessing quality of life in a wide range of medical conditions and appears to be particularly useful for assessing the quality of life in patients with Long-COVID-19 [9,16,17] . With speci c reference to Long-COVID, the EuroQol has been able to detect the decrease in health-related quality of life and has been able to demonstrate that Long COVID involves a signi cantly higher disability rate than that which is seen in the general population [9,18,19,20] .…”

Neuroinflammation in post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC) as assessed by [11C]PBR28 PET correlates with vascular disease measures

“…Symptoms can be diverse and commonly include nonspecific neurological and neuropsychiatric symptoms including difficulty concentrating or subjective ‘brain fog,’ unusually profound fatigue, headaches, depression, anxiety, body pain, and disrupted sleep (Davis et al, 2021; Zeng et al, 2023). These symptoms can significantly impact quality of life (Líška et al, 2022), and can be initiated even by mild acute COVID-19 illness (Boribong et al, 2022; Ma et al, 2023).…”