Post COVID-19 syndrome among 5248 healthcare workers in England: longitudinal findings from NHS CHECK, 2024, Dempsey et al

SW skulking around Long Covid research with this new paper in the OEM (Occupational and Environmental Health Medicine) in the BMJ.

https://oem.bmj.com/content/early/2024/10/01/oemed-2024-109621

 

Post COVID-19 syndrome among 5248 healthcare workers in England: longitudinal findings from NHS CHECK

Brendan Dempsey, Helen A Blake, Ira Madan, Sharon A M Stevelink, Neil Greenberg, Rosalind Raine, Anne-Marie Rafferty, Rupa Bhundia, Simon Wessely, Danielle Lamb

Abstract
Objectives The objectives of this study were to examine post COVID-19 syndrome (PCS) among healthcare workers (HCWs) in England and explore risk factors for the condition.

Methods Data were collected by National Health Service (NHS) CHECK, a longitudinal study exploring HCWs’ mental and physical well-being during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. NHS CHECK collected data at four timepoints: the baseline survey between April 2020 and January 2021, and then three follow-up surveys at approximately 6, 12 and 32 months post baseline. PCS data were collected at 12 and 32 months, while risk factor data were from baseline. HCWs were asked what COVID-19 symptoms they experienced and for how long and were classified as having PCS if they had any symptom for ≥12 weeks. Multilevel regressions were used to examine risk factors for PCS.

Results This study included 5248 HCWs. While 33.6% (n=1730) reported prolonged COVID-19 symptoms consistent with PCS, only 7.4% (n=385) reported a formal diagnosis of PCS. Fatigue, difficult concentrating, insomnia and anxiety or depression were the most common PCS symptoms. Baseline risk factors for reporting PCS included screening for common mental disorders, direct contact with COVID-19 patients, pre-existing respiratory illnesses, female sex and older age.

Conclusions While a third of HCWs reported prolonged COVID-19 symptoms consistent with PCS, a smaller percentage reported a formal diagnosis of the condition. We replicate findings that direct contact with COVID-19 patients, older age, female sex, pre-existing respiratory illness and symptoms of common mental disorders are associated with increased risk of PCS.

Link | PDF (Occupational and Environmental Medicine) [Open access]

 

Expanding market identified .
Expect the proven paradigm to be applied.
I hope health care workers know what they're in for .

 

Odd 'study', if it can be called that. The choice of the name itself is odd. This 'PCS' is very rarely used and this study is published after hundreds on the same issue have been published. I guess it's because using LC in a study by MDs, for MDs, about MDs is seen as problematic. Snowflakes must flake.

Which also happen to be the most common symptoms found in health care. So that's a choice to frame it this way. A biased choice with an obvious agenda. One that does not want to pay for sick leave and disability, which sometimes feels is the most important thing of all.

Aside from the creepiness factor of Wessely being involved at any level in the thing he helped break, exemplified by the discrepancy in confirmed diagnoses, this is basically the thing he is most famous for. He built his career on it, everything that followed was all on the basis of his work working with this very issue and similar ones, which he also helped break. And just like Crawley, who was only one of several named authors on a study of pediatric LC, he is just one named author on this study. It doesn't say much about any loss of influence, but it says a lot about how little value his work and ideas actually have. In real life, his work is of no value whatsoever. It's just convenient to prop up the old myths.

There are a few references to his past work. And this:

Reference #16 is to the 2021 NICE guideline. This here includes that it's "defined by postexertional malaise", which is one of the main points of discord over the rejected guideline. Although didn't they change that to 3 months? Anyway this is something Wessely and his gang threw a tantrum about, and managed to rope in the professional associations.

No idea how they came up with that. This obviously does not come from data other than LC being commonly mislabeled as mental illness:

But the answer follows quickly:

Obviously the real problem all along is that no one thought to screen for mental health before and did not emphasize how important it could be. Yup. They got it solved, real finger on the pulse.

Kind of funny to write this considering Wessely:

It is under-researched and poorly understood but it has literally been asserted as a fact and forced onto hundreds of thousands for years. On the basis of his work. They don't know much about it, but are fanatical in forcing it down millions of people's throats. Yup. Genius work there.

So yeah looking at how they came up with the data for common mental disorders, they just use the standard questionnaires with overlapping questions. Can't work and function? Have trouble with everyday activities? Clearly mental health. No physical illness can cause this, obviously. See, these people are experts and stuff.

Also, oooh that's a lot of missing data on those questionnaires with the overlapping questions. A bad study falsely attributing LC to mental illness always needs that.

Ahh, ye olde conversion disorder, still everpresent for reasons that will never make sense:

Speculation about imaginary but convenient processes. About things used in standard practice for decades onto millions. That's how real pros, well, literally never do anything. But those aren't real pros, they're sham pros.

Odd, and unlikely:

It has already been explored plenty so far. Somehow they 'missed' it. They just know nothing about it. Nope. Total surprise here.

 

They found 'common mental disorders' in over half their sample (though you have to go delving in the supplemental tables to see this; for some reason they don't want to give the figures in their summary), and they define PCS as any one of a very long list of symptoms lasting longer than four weeks after an infection.

Make your definitions vague enough and you can find whatever overlaps you like, I guess.

 

SW has a habit of calling Long Covid Post COVID Syndrome. Maybe for several reasons, he can't bring himself to call it the patient given term and it also is closer to CFS - as well as the insinuation that it's a post issue ie the virus isn't there and other 'things' are causing the sustaining of symptoms.

 

Not on the agenda.

 

King's College London News Centre: Long COVID symptoms prevalent among healthcare workers

quote:
This research shows that we should be particularly concerned about the impacts of this on the health and social care sector, especially in older and female workers, and staff with pre-existing physical and mental health conditions. We now need to better understand the complex interplay between biomedical, psychological, and social factors that affect people's experiences of Long COVID, and how healthcare workers with this condition can best be supported.”

https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/long-covid-symptoms-prevalent-among-healthcare-workers

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1843593415680020668


The GHQ-12 is a screening tool. A positive response should not be taken as having a mental health condition. It means more evaluation is necessary. Authors suggesting the presence of common mental disorders is misleading and irresponsible. What gives, @bmj_latest? The shoddiness.

I mean I’d be pretty bummed out too if I felt like crap and had to go to work with an undiagnosed life-changing infection-associated chronic disease but that doesn’t mean I have a common mental health disorder. It means I’m having a normal response to a highly abnormal situation.

Maybe if I was a mental health clinician, I’d be pretty upset with all these studies cheapening the psychodiagnostic process. If it can be done strictly by questionnaire, there’s no expertise necessary. I wouldn’t want to cede that professional territory if I valued my field.

But that’s just me.

They used a general mental health screener and then other screeners as “sensitivity analyses.” Screeners are optimized to include false positives, ensuring everyone who needs additional evaluation gets it and no one is missed. Prevalence will be artificially inflated as a result.

This is so messy that I can’t believe that a simple country physical therapist can spot this in the middle of the night on a first read of the paper, but no one at a prestige journal like @bmj_latest can figure it out after months of peer review. It’s really kind of embarrassing.

 

... but we'll still put out a press release hyping it up.

LOL.

 

So....they chose to ignore/not collect pretty much all the important data and still come up with this report.

A bit like a recipe for an omelette that not only doesn't mention eggs, butter and a pan but states that suggesting such things might be helpful is an indication of MH health problems.

I really hope that the people who designed, executed, and compiled this report paid a lot of money to the NHS as compensation.

 

Absolutely weird to put out a slogan on an academic press release. This has nothing to do with the problem, but it's the conclusion they started with. It's actually creepy as hell considering how published this garbage. Like some tobacco company pushing their products in the same press releases as they address growing evidence of its harms.

And, now? It's been 4.5 years of these people having their heads up their asses. Arrive late to the pot luck party. Bring discarded leftovers from the floor of the car. "Hey no need to thank me, I'm just an ordinary hero who will make you McLove me, now make the party all about me me me". Or whatever.