Clinical characterization of new-onset chronic musculoskeletal pain in Long COVID: a cross-sectional study, 2024, Omar Khoja et al

Abstract
Purpose: New-onset chronic musculoskeletal (MSK) pain is one of the common persistent symptoms in Long COVID (LC). This study investigated its clinical characteristics, underlying mechanisms, and impact on function, psychological health, and quality of life.

Patients and methods: 30 adults (19 female, 11 male) with LC and new-onset chronic MSK pain underwent clinical examination, Quantitative Sensory Testing (QST), and blood tests for inflammatory markers, and completed the following outcome measures: Timed Up and Go test (TUG), handgrip strength test, COVID-19 Yorkshire Rehabilitation Scale (C19-YRS), Brief Pain Inventory (BPI), Pain Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (PSEQ), Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS), International Physical Activity Questionnaire - short form (IPAQ-sf), Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD-7), Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), and EuroQol Five Dimensions health-related quality of life (EQ-5D-5L).

Results: New-onset chronic MSK pain was widespread and continuous in nature, and worse in the joints. When compared to normative values reported in the literature: a) QST revealed mechanical hyperalgesia, heightened temporal summation of pain, and hypoesthesia to vibration stimuli, which is strongly suggestive of central sensitization; b) Plasma cytokine assays indicated distinct pro- inflammatory profiles; c) TUG time indicated reduced balance and mobility; d) handgrip strength revealed general weakness; e) physical activity was lower ; and f) there were moderate levels of depression and anxiety with lower self-efficacy scores and lower levels of pain catastrophizing. LC symptoms were of moderate severity (44.8/100), moderate functional disability (22.8/50) and severely compromised overall health (2.6/10) when compared to pre-COVID scores.

Conclusion: New-onset chronic MSK pain in LC tends to be widespread, constant, and associated with weakness, reduced function, depression, anxiety, and reduced quality of life. There is associated central sensitization and proinflammatory state in the condition. Further research is essential to explore the longitudinal progression and natural evolution of the new-onset chronic MSK pain in LC.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.03.09.24304024v1

 

If your construct is based on "having symptoms" and you ask people with many symptoms whether they have symptoms you will get a very confused result that is largely poor interpretation of a concept made up entirely to falsely attribute "having symptoms" to some magical psychological process because y'all kept insisting that "viruses don't do that" for decades.

Good grief this biopsychosocial nonsense cannot die soon enough, it's crippling medicine's ability to reason, which in turn makes them unable to make progress.

 

Think I'm going to put that on a t-shirt...

 

I have no idea whether the two questionnaires are related (as this one is 9 questions, the one in this link is 15), however having read the followign paper which includes SHarpe, Stone, Carson saying that the PHQ 15 doesn't identify people with unexplained symptoms better than chance I thought I'd do a quick google in case there were papers for which this reference might be relevant:

Somatic symptom count scores do not identify patients with symptoms unexplained by disease: a prospective cohort study of neurology outpatients - PubMed (nih.gov)

Conclusions: Self-rated symptom count scores should not be used to identify patients with symptoms unexplained by disease."

To discuss this paper, go to this thread:
Somatic symptom count scores do not identify patients with symptoms unexplained by disease: a ... study of neurology outpatients, 2015, Carson, Sharpe