Health-related quality of life and associated factors among COVID-19 individuals managed with indian traditional medicine: A cross-sectional study from south India

Rajalakshmi Elumalai; Bhavani Shankara Bagepally; Manickam Ponnaiah; Tarun Bhatnagar; Suganya Barani; Poornima Kannan; Lakshmi Kantham; P Sathiyarajeswaran; Sasikumar D; Post COVID-19 study team

doi:10.1016/j.cegh.2023.101250

Health-related quality of life and associated factors among COVID-19 individuals managed with indian traditional medicine: A cross-sectional study from south India

Clin Epidemiol Glob Health. 2023 Mar-Apr:20:101250. doi: 10.1016/j.cegh.2023.101250. Epub 2023 Feb 12.

Authors

Rajalakshmi Elumalai¹, Bhavani Shankara Bagepally¹, Manickam Ponnaiah¹, Tarun Bhatnagar¹, Suganya Barani², Poornima Kannan¹, Lakshmi Kantham³, P Sathiyarajeswaran⁴, Sasikumar D⁵; Post COVID-19 study team

Affiliations

¹ ICMR - National Institute of Epidemiology, Tamil Nadu, India.
² Directorate of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Tamil Nadu, India.
³ National Institute of Siddha, Tamil Nadu, India.
⁴ Central Council for Research in Siddha, Tamil Nadu, India.
⁵ Government Siddha Medical College, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.

Abstract

Introduction: Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) had a multidimensional impact on human life. It affects the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) which is a perceived measure of physical and mental health. We estimated the EuroQol utility value for COVID-19 and the associated factors for those managed at Siddha COVID care centres in Tamil Nadu.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted by a telephonic interview of 2000 randomly selected COVID-19 adults tested positive during June 2020 to Jan 2021. We collected sociodemographic, clinical and EQ-5D-5L profile. Mean EQ-5D-5L summary utility values and EQ-VAS scores were estimated. Multivariate regression was used to examine the factors associated with EQ-5D-5L. Study protocol was approved by the Institutional ethics committee of Government Siddha Medical College, Chennai (GSMC-CH-3401/ME-2/050/2021). The committee waived the written informed consent considering the pandemic situation of emerging infectious diseases.

Results: We interviewed 1047 participants. Of the total 68% were males with the median age (IQR) of 38 (29-51) years. The mean EQ-5D-5L utility score and EQ-VAS scores are 0.98 ± 0.05 and 92.14 ± 0.39 respectively. COVID-19 asymptomatic group reported a mean utility score of 0.99 ± 0.03 which is relatively more than the symptomatic group (0.97 ± 0.06),. EQ-VAS score was also reported high among the asymptomatic (95.45 ± 5.95) than the symptomatic (91.40 ± 8.69COVID-19.

Conclusion: The severity of illness and the comorbidity are significantly associated with a low HRQoL of COVID-19 patients.

Keywords: EQ-5D-5L; Observational study; Post COVID-19; Siddha medicine.