What is the quality of life in patients with long COVID compared to a healthy control group? 2022, Liska et al

Introduction: Many patients have prolonged symptoms after COVID-19 infection, which can affect patient quality of life (QOL). The aim of this study is to determine the quality of life in patients with long COVID, compared with healthy controls.

Material and methods: The study was a prospective cross-sectional study using an anonymous online survey. The SF-36 questionnaire was chosen for quality of life measurement. The survey was distributed through the Facebook social media platform targeting groups of patients with long COVID. The control group was made up of physiotherapy and physical education students.

Results: There was a significant difference in physical function, with a mean score of 94.9 (±9.4) among the students, compared to long COVID patients with a mean score of 66.2 (±25.4) (p < 0.001). A similar result was found in the physical role (p < 0.001). The overall quality of life score for college students was 578.0 (±111.9), and the overall score for patients with long COVID was 331.9 (±126.9).

Conclusions: Patients with long COVID had a lower quality of life compared to the healthy control group, and this was associated with the negative effect of long-COVID. Lower quality of life in patients with long COVID is an important therapeutic goal, which requires attention.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2022.975992/full

 

Yet another study showing that the SF-36 physical function questionnaire threshold of 60 in the PACE trial is indefensible. Subtracting one standard deviation from the mean of the healthy group yields 85.5 as the recovery score.

 

With these numbers Pace 2.0 for Long Covid is probably going to have to use a similar strategy but with a bigger spread, 45 counts as recovered and take in everyone under 90.

 

Shhhh! That was carefully done to get numbers that looked good. After all, the goal for publication is numbers that look good, regardless of how you got them.

 

This. When scientists on my side publish bad research, I'm going to call them out as vigorously as when Trudy Chalder does it. Using such a control group doesn't entirely invalidate their research, as we know that being at 66% physical function is still a lot lower than age-matched healthy controls. But it makes you wonder their motives...As academic researchers, it was probably easy to use college students as a control because they're always around.

 

That does not seem sensible. They might as well have just had a "virtual control" group with an ideal score for "healthy".