Factors shaping the mental health and well-being of people experiencing persistent COVID-19 symptoms or ‘long COVID’: qualitative study
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Abstract
Around one in ten people who contract COVID-19 report persistent symptoms or ‘long COVID’. Impaired mental health and well-being is commonly reported, including anxiety, depression and reduced quality of life. However, there is limited in-depth research exploring why mental health and well-being are affected in people experiencing long COVID.
Aims
To explore factors affecting mental health and well-being from the perspective of people with long COVID.
Method
Semi-structured qualitative interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed. Data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. Twenty-one people with long COVID participated in the study. Participants were eligible if they self-reported a positive swab test/antibody test or one or more commonly reported COVID-19 symptoms at illness onset. and experiences of one or more long COVID symptoms ≥3 weeks following illness onset.
Results
Five themes were identified across participant accounts regarding factors affecting mental health and well-being, including symptoms causing severe disruption to daily life, lack of service and treatment options, uncertainty of illness trajectories, experiences of care and understanding from others and changes to identity.
Conclusions
People with long COVID experience a range of factors that negatively affect their mental health and well-being. Providing patient-centred health services that integrate rapidly evolving research in this area is important, as are peer support groups and supported approaches to self-management.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2021.10.13.21264855: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Ethics Consent: Eligible participants were encouraged to ask questions about the study before providing written informed consent to take part and completing a demographics form.
IRB: Ethical approval to conduct the study was received from the UCL Ethics Committee (Project ID 14895/005).Sex as a biological variable not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Table 2: Resources
Experimental Models: Organisms/Strains Sentences Resources Interviews were conducted by a female postdoctoral applied mental health services researcher (AB) via video (14 interviews) or telephone call (7 interviews) depending on participant preference. ABsuggested: RRID:BDSC_203)Results …
SciScore for 10.1101/2021.10.13.21264855: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Ethics Consent: Eligible participants were encouraged to ask questions about the study before providing written informed consent to take part and completing a demographics form.
IRB: Ethical approval to conduct the study was received from the UCL Ethics Committee (Project ID 14895/005).Sex as a biological variable not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Table 2: Resources
Experimental Models: Organisms/Strains Sentences Resources Interviews were conducted by a female postdoctoral applied mental health services researcher (AB) via video (14 interviews) or telephone call (7 interviews) depending on participant preference. ABsuggested: RRID:BDSC_203)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:Participants often described barriers to engaging in activities that might protect their mental health, however being listened to and feeling validated by health professionals, family and friends, accessing peer support and engaging in enjoyable activities within the limitations of their condition, were identified as important for psychological wellbeing. Our findings align with, and extend, existing research into experiences of long Covid. They echo work that has previously described symptoms; impacts on daily life; and interaction with healthcare providers16,28,29. However, our work extends previous findings by highlighting which features of long Covid are seen as most significant in shaping mental health and wellbeing from the perspective of people with lived experience. Our findings also improve understanding of how these features are experienced by people with long Covid, and as such, present potentially useful considerations for healthcare, self-management, and wider society. In keeping with the growing body of research, our participants reported multiple, varied, relapsing-remitting symptoms often severely impacting their ability to engage in daily life16,28,29. These limitations have strong negative impacts on mental health and wellbeing through limiting participation in enjoyable aspects of life and those that gave individuals their sense of identity, including work, leisure, and social activities. Experiences of loss and threatened identity were also found in a qual...
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.
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