Review Prevalence of sleep disturbances in patients with LC assessed by standardised questionnaires and diagnostic criteria... 2023 Chinvararak and Chalder

Highlights

• Sleep disturbances are highly prevalent in long COVID-19 patients.
• Sleep disturbances include poor sleep quality, insomnia and excessive daytime sleepiness.
• It is impossible to know whether sleep problems pre-dated COVID-19 infection.
• The healthcare sector should provide early, effective treatment.

Abstract

Objective
We aimed to study the prevalence of sleep disturbances in patients with long COVID-19.

Methods
We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of the pooled prevalence of sleep disturbances in patients post COVID-19. We systematically searched relevant studies from three databases, including Medline, Embase and Scopus. Original articles were included based on specific criteria: peer-reviewed, observational studies involving adults (18 or older) with confirmed post COVID-19 status through PCR testing and focused on sleep in the context of post COVID-19. Exclusion criteria included non-English articles, studies with insufficient data, and narrative/systematic reviews. The search was performed from 31st July 2023 to 15th August 2023. We identified 35 eligible papers; however, we excluded 6 studies which did not describe the sleep assessment. We used a random-effects meta-analysis model to estimate the pooled prevalence of sleep disturbances.

Results
29 studies involved 13,935 long COVID-19 patients; approximately 39% of participants were male aged 18 to 97 years. The overall pooled prevalence of sleep disturbance was 46% (95% CI: 38–54%). Subgroup analyses revealed that the pooled prevalence of poor sleep quality was 56% (95% CI: 47–65%). The pooled prevalence of insomnia was 38% (95% CI: 28–48%). Finally, the pooled prevalence of excessive daytime sleepiness was 14% (95% CI: 0–29%).

Conclusion
Sleep disturbances are common in long COVID-19 patients. The healthcare sector should recognise these sleep issues and provide an early, effective treatment to prevent long-term sequelae of sleep problems.

Open access, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022399923003926

 

Funding statement
TC is part-funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and King's College London.

Declaration of Competing Interest
TC has grants from UKRI, NIHR and St Thomas' Charity. TC is the author of several self-help books on chronic fatigue for which she has received royalties. TC(KCL) has received ad hoc payments for workshops carried out in long-term conditions and travel expenses and accommodation costs of attending Conferences – BABCP, EABCT and ATS.

 

For far too many, the healthcare sector doesn't and can't.

 

Well that's obviously incorrect. You ask, you get answers, this is as simple as that. Not only is it possible, it's even above trivial to the point of being expected. If 29 studies didn't ask you have very deep fundamental issues with the entire discipline doing research on this, but I doubt very much that they didn't ask.

Again, what a terrible way to do research. Evidence-based medicine is such trash, overly expensive while being unable to do the most basic stuff right.

Well you don't have any, in part because most of the effort is just mediocre like this. If my mother had wheels and an engine, she'd be a car.

 

And what the hell is this doing in psychosomatic research? Sleep issues after a viral infection are not freaking psychosomatic. WTH?

 

A product looking for a market … sorry pretend ‘solution’ looking to reframe a problem to claim it will ‘help’

same old gravy train ?

 

Perhaps this contradiction is worth highlighting in a letter to the editor.