Persistent somatic symptoms are key to individual illness perception at one year after COVID-19 in a cross-sectional analysis of a prospective cohort study
Journal of psychosomatic research
; 2023.
Article
in English
| EuropePMC | ID: covidwho-2263525
ABSTRACT
Objective Subjective illness perception (IP) can differ from physician's clinical assessment results. Herein, we explored patient's IP during coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) recovery. Methods Participants of the prospective observation CovILD study (ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04416100) with persistent somatic symptoms or cardiopulmonary findings one year after COVID-19 were analyzed (n = 74). Explanatory variables included demographic and comorbidity, COVID-19 course and one-year follow-up data of persistent somatic symptoms, physical performance, lung function testing, chest computed tomography and trans-thoracic echocardiography. Factors affecting IP (Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire) one year after COVID-19 were identified by regularized modeling and unsupervised clustering. Results In modeling, 33% of overall IP variance (R2) was attributed to fatigue intensity, reduced physical performance and persistent somatic symptom count. Overall IP was largely independent of lung and heart findings revealed by imaging and function testing. In clustering, persistent somatic symptom count (Kruskal-Wallis test η2 = 0.31, p < .001), fatigue (η2 = 0.34, p < .001), diminished physical performance (χ2 test, Cramer V effect size statistic V = 0.51, p < .001), dyspnea (V = 0.37, p = .006), hair loss (V = 0.57, p < .001) and sleep problems (V = 0.36, p = .008) were strongly associated with the concern, emotional representation, complaints, disease timeline and consequences IP dimensions. Conclusion Persistent somatic symptoms rather than abnormalities in cardiopulmonary testing influence IP one year after COVID-19. Modifying IP represents a promising innovative approach to treatment of post-COVID-19 condition. Besides COVID-19 severity, individual IP should guide rehabilitation and psychological therapy decisions.
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Collection:
Databases of international organizations
Database:
EuropePMC
Type of study:
Cohort study
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
/
Randomized controlled trials
Topics:
Long Covid
Language:
English
Journal:
Journal of psychosomatic research
Year:
2023
Document Type:
Article
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