Review Dropouts in exercise rehabilitation program in patients with Long COVID: A systematic review 2025 Ritti Dias et al

Abstract

Objective
To describe dropout rates, reasons, and factors associated with dropout during rehabilitation programs for patients with Long COVID.

Design
A search was conducted in PubMed, Embase, and Web of Science. Clinical trials were included that involved exercise programs lasting at least 4 weeks and focused on Long COVID patients aged 18 or older of both sexes, reporting on dropouts and their reasons. The TESTEX scale assessed study quality. Data on patients, interventions, and dropout rates were extracted and presented as frequencies.

Results
Twenty-three studies with 1,523 patients (mean age 53.0 ± 6.4 years, 51% female) were included. Overall, 14% (n = 216) of Long COVID patients dropped out. Reasons included health problems (23%), incomplete assessments (19%), loss of interest (16%), lack of adherence (7%), adherence to other interventions (4%), and 31% unreported. The dropout rate was significantly higher in 2020 compared to 2021 (p = 0.039), while no significant associations were observed between the dropout rate and other variables.

Conclusion
Exercise rehabilitation studies for Long COVID patients show a 14% dropout rate, with the most common reasons being health-related issues and incomplete assessments.

Paywall

 

I suspect the dropout rates would be a lot higher if the interventions were longer.

These time-limited interventions seem specially designed to ensure that most people can just struggle on long enough to get to the end of them, before they collapse in a heap and are basically abandoned.

 

Aside from health problems and loss of interest, which is very poorly framed, the rest aren't actual reasons. What does "incomplete assessments" even mean here as a reason to drop-out? Absolutely nothing. They're not asking the right questions because they don't actually want to make this known.

There is very obviously no interest in finding those reasons and most of the studies don't actually bother. An entire industry built on picking already-picked cherries, and they can't even bother keeping track despite picking a very small number each time. Pathetic waste of an industry.