Post-COVID symptoms and managing return-to-work

Abstract

Purpose Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection is associated with risk of persistent neurocognitive and neuropsychiatric complications (Colizzi M, 2024), termed "post-COVID". These persistent symptoms negatively impact health, quality of life, and work productivity (Ida FS, 2024). The study aimed to investigate the frequency of post-COVID-19 syndrome and associated factors on patients work ability and issues of returning to work.

Method A retrospective analysis of patients presenting to a post-COVID outpatient clinic at Marburg University Hospital, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Germany was conducted. Patients received basic socio-demographics, structured examination, psychometric diagnostic and neuropsychological examination.

Results and Discussion In total, 113 patients participated in this study with an average age of 45.2 ±12.07 years.  65.49 % of patients were women. In 98.23% of the cases the initial infection was mild. The most frequent symptoms of admission included fatigue (84.07%), cognitive decline (99.12%), affective symptoms (56.63 %) and insomnia (41.59%). The symptom duration could be determined for 324 days from infection to admission to the post-covid outpatient clinic. Moreover, 54,59% of patients showed a reduced work productivity or were unable to return to work. These results show long-term effects of post-COVID-19 syndrome on cognitive and emotional functioning and sleep quality and underline the substantial impact on work ability. Our findings lead to the conclusion that for post-COVID patients’ modifications of work environments and tasks as well as education on how to pace one selves' resources to match energy levels with work activities is important to dimminish burdens for returning to work (Straßburger C, 2023). Supportive internet- and mobile-based interventions (IMI) might be a useful approaches for psychosocial diagnostics and interventions and provide an opportunity to optimize medical and occupational rehabilitation for post-COVID patients.

References

Colizzi M, Comacchio C, De Martino M, Peghin M, Bontempo G, Chiappinotto S, Fonda F, Isola M, Tascini C, Balestrieri M, Palese A. COVID-19-induced neuropsychiatric symptoms can persist long after acute infection: a 2-year prospective study of biobehavioral risk factors and psychometric outcomes. Ir J Psychol Med. 2024 Feb 14:1-8. doi: 10.1017/ipm.2023.53. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 38351842.

Ida FS, Ferreira HP, Vasconcelos AKM, Furtado IAB, Fontenele CJPM, Pereira AC. Post-COVID-19 syndrome: persistent symptoms, functional impact, quality of life, return to work, and indirect costs - a prospective case study 12 months after COVID-19 infection. Cad Saude Publica. 2024 Feb 19;40(2):e00022623. doi: 10.1590/0102-311XPT026623. PMID: 38381867; PMCID: PMC10877695.

Straßburger C, Hieber D, Karthan M, Jüster M, Schobel J. Return to work after Post-COVID: describing affected employees' perceptions of personal resources, organizational offerings and care pathways. Front Public Health. 2023 Nov 27;11:1282507. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2023.1282507. PMID: 38089028; PMCID: PMC10715408.

Keywords: Long Covid, neuropsychiatric symptoms, return to work

Affiliation: Department/Faculty, University name, country

Corresponding Author Email: nicole.cabanel@fb4.fra-uas.de Authors’ ORCID iDs: 0000-0003-0093-7859