Impact of persistent COVID-19 symptoms on social life of female long haulers: A qualitative study

  1. Atefeh Aghaei
  2. Ran Zhang
  3. Slone Taylor
  4. Cheuk-Chi Tam
  5. Chih-Hsiang Yang
  6. Xiaoming Li
  7. Shan Qiao

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Abstract

Introduction

Persistent COVID-19 symptoms (long COVID) may bring numerous challenges to long haulers’ social lives. Women may have to endure more profound impacts given their social roles and existing structural inequality. This study aims to explore the impacts of long COVID on various aspects of social life among female long haulers.

Methods

We conducted 15 semi-structured interviews with female long haulers in the United States purposely recruited from Facebook groups, Slack groups, and organization websites. The interviews were audio recorded after appropriate consent and transcribed verbatim. Inductive approach was applied in thematic analysis, which consists of six stages: becoming familiar with data, developing initial codes, extracting themes, refining themes, labeling themes, and reporting. The MAXQDA software was used in data analysis.

Results

Persistent COVID-19 symptoms negatively affected female long haulers’ social lives in many aspects including physical function, financial security, social relationship, conflict of social roles, and social stigma. Physical limitations changed their body image. Social isolation and work-family conflicts caused huge stress. They experienced internalization of stigma and job insecurities. Shifting to new methods of communication, especially social media may buffer the negative effects of social isolation because of long COVID.

Conclusion

Existing policies and intervention programs need to be adapted to address the challenges and barriers that long haulers face in returning to normal social life, especially for females. Tailored social life-related recommendations and social support are needed for female long haulers.

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    SciScore for 10.1101/2022.01.21.22269671: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsConsent: In total, 17 participants completed a written informed consent and participated in a semi-structured interview.
    IRB: This study was reviewed and approved by the University of South Carolina Institutional Review Board (Pro00109358).
    Sex as a biological variableData collection: The primary purpose of the semi-structured interviews was to gather information on the impact of COVID-19 persistent symptoms on different aspects of the social life among female long haulers.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    While some studies mentioned that COVID-19 negatively affects body image (40), our findings revealed that these changes in the body images were rooted in their physical limitations. The economic losses to women are indirect consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic (41). The COVID-19 effect on the economy could emerge in different forms of a female long hauler’s life. Our results showed that unemployment and insecure financial status are part of the detrimental effects of COVID-19. Previous studies suggested that many women in the informal sector have limited access to benefits like social security, and widespread unemployment will cause long-term effects on their economic independence and security (42). Also, as women’s return to employment is often hindered when jobs are scarce, COVID-19 may worsen existing gender disparities over time (43). In addition, for women, job insecurity due to the coronavirus is another problem. Many studies demonstrate that women took on primary family responsibilities regardless of employment status when schools were closed, and family members were at home (44). Likewise, in our study, participants mentioned that they were laid off or forced to quit their jobs to attend family matters during the pandemic. Women’s higher family responsibilities make them more vulnerable to economic shocks than men (41). In this regard, our study participants reported that precarious economic conditions prevented them from paying for health care and medical treatment....

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    About SciScore

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  2. Version published to 10.1101/2022.01.21.22269671v1 on medRxiv
  3. Version published to 10.1101/2022.01.21.22269671v2 on medRxiv