PROMIS scales for assessment of the impact of post-COVID syndrome: A Cross Sectional Study

Abstract

The post-COVID syndrome is estimated to occur in up to 10% of patients who have had COVID-19. This condition manifests as lingering symptoms which persist for weeks to months after resolution of the acute illness. The syndrome is poorly understood and efforts are just beginning to appropriately characterize the symptoms expressed by this population. We present a population of patients with persistent symptoms as measured by a select number of PROMIS surveys (i.e. fatigue, sleep, pain, physical functioning, and social roles). We believe this to be the first use of the PROMIS survey data collected in this population and one of the first to attempt to measure social dysfunction secondary to the post-COVID syndrome. Our patient population is notably younger (30.9% were between 40-59 years of age), with a majority being female (60.5%). They also reported deficits in social roles (34.5%), and greater fatigue (14.7%), and pain (15.9%); along with a variety of disease severity ranging from asymptomatic to requiring admission. Despite this increased heterogeneity of population, the symptomatology of the post-COVID syndrome is preserved. These findings differ significantly from previously published data that demonstrated that outpatients can have duration of post-COVID syndrome similar to those who were hospitalized.

Fatigue outcomes following COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis

“…A small study of Middle East respiratory syndrome patients revealed that 32.7% had clinically relevant chronic fatigue, according to their Fatigue Severity Scale (FSS) scores, at 18 months’ follow-up 18. Likewise, for a considerable number of patients with COVID-19, tiredness symptoms extend beyond 3 months and represent a larger burden of postinfection symptomology 19–41. A large study of 1142 hospitalised patients found that 61% had fatigue 7 months post COVID-19 42.…”