Clinical characterization and factors associated with quality of life in Long COVID patients: Secondary data analysis from a randomized clinical trial

Mario Samper-Pardo; Sandra León-Herrera; Bárbara Oliván-Blázquez; Santiago Gascón-Santos; Raquel Sánchez-Recio

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0278728

Clinical characterization and factors associated with quality of life in Long COVID patients: Secondary data analysis from a randomized clinical trial

PLoS One. 2023 May 16;18(5):e0278728. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0278728. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Mario Samper-Pardo¹, Sandra León-Herrera^{1

2}, Bárbara Oliván-Blázquez^{1

2

3}, Santiago Gascón-Santos^{1

2}, Raquel Sánchez-Recio^{1

4}

Affiliations

¹ Institute for Health Research Aragon (IISAragon), Zaragoza, Spain.
² Department of Psychology and Sociology, University of Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Spain.
³ Network for Research on Chronicity, Primary Care, and Health Promotion (RICAPPS), Barcelona, Spain.
⁴ Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, University of Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Spain.

Abstract

Background: Long COVID patients suffer a negative impact on their quality of life, as well as their functioning, productivity or socialization. There is a need to better understand the individual experience and circumstances surrounding these patients.

Objective: To characterize clinical picture of Long COVID patients and to identify factors associated with quality of life.

Methods: A secondary data analysis from a randomized clinical trial (RCT) was carried out with 100 Long COVID patients treated by Primary Health Care and residents in the territory of Aragon (northeast of Spain). The main variable of the study was quality of life, evaluated using the SF-36 Questionnaire, in relation to socio-demographic and clinical variables. In addition, ten validated scales were used that contemplated their cognitive, affective, functional and social status, as well as personal constructs. Correlation statistics and linear regression model were calculated.

Results: Long COVID patients suffer a decrease in their levels of physical and mental health. On the one hand, the higher number of persistent symptoms (b = -0.900, p = 0.008), worse physical functioning (b = 1.587, p = 0.002) and sleep quality (b = -0.538, p = 0.035) are predictors of worse quality of life, physical subscale. On the other hand, higher educational level (b = 13.167, p = 0.017), lower number of persistent symptoms (b = -0.621, p = 0.057) and higher affective affectation (b = -1.402, p<0.001) are predictors of worse quality of life, mental subscale.

Conclusion: It is necessary to design rehabilitation programs that consider both the physical and mental health of these patients, thus obtaining an improvement in their quality of life.

Copyright: © 2023 Samper-Pardo et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Publication types

Randomized Controlled Trial
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

COVID-19*
Humans
Mental Health
Post-Acute COVID-19 Syndrome*
Quality of Life / psychology
Secondary Data Analysis

Associated data

ISRCTN/ISRCTN91104012

Grants and funding

Financial support for the conduct of the research was obtained from the Health Institute Carlos III (ISCIII) (grant number PI21/01356). However, ISCIII were not involved in collection, analysis or interpretation of data, in the writing of the report, and in the decision to submit the paper for publication. Bárbara Oliván-Blázquez is the main researcher of this project. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.