Pre-pandemic care-seeking patterns and subsequent diagnoses of post-COVID condition, [PVFS], and exhaustion disorder:... 2026 af Geijerstam et al

Andy

Andy

Senior Member (Voting rights)
Full title: Pre-pandemic care-seeking patterns and subsequent diagnoses of post-COVID condition, post viral fatigue syndrome, and exhaustion disorder: a registry-based cohort study of 208,050 Swedish women

Abstract​

Background​

Women are disproportionately diagnosed with symptom-based conditions, notably post-COVID condition (PCC). In Sweden, as of February 2022, 2.3% of PCR-verified female COVID-19 cases versus 1.6% of male cases had a PCC diagnosis. Post-viral fatigue syndrome (PVFS) and exhaustion disorder (ED), a common and relevant diagnosis in Sweden, share substantial symptom overlap with PCC.

Aims​

To quantify the association between pre-pandemic, symptom-based primary-care visits and subsequent PCC, PVFS, and ED among adult women, adjusting for risk factors for severe COVID-19.

Methods​

We conducted a registry-based prospective cohort study of 208,050 women from the Swedish Medical Birth Register, linked to primary-care data and national sociodemographic registers. The exposure was the frequency of visits for predefined symptom-based conditions during 2015–2019. Adjusted odds ratios (ORs) for diagnoses in 2020–2024 were estimated using logistic regression controlling for BMI, education, age, and region of birth.

Results​

Across 2,431,182 primary-care physician visits, 19% were symptom-based. Women with >8 such visits had higher odds of all three outcomes: PCC (OR 5.45, 95% CI 4.43–6.71), PVFS (OR 7.71, 95% CI 5.97–9.96), and ED (OR 5.32, 95% CI 4.84–5.85). Pre-pandemic BMI and education were not associated with PCC or PVFS but showed some association with ED. Still, 17% of women with PCC had no recorded symptom-based visits before the pandemic.

Conclusions​

Pre-pandemic symptom-based primary-care visits were strongly associated with higher risk of PCC, PVFS, and ED in a dose-dependent way, but modest discrimination underscores heterogeneous individual risk. Patterns suggest other influences alongside biological susceptibility.

Open access
 
Aside from check-ups and the like, I'm pretty sure close to 100% of GP visits are about 'symptom-based' issues. They don't bother defining what they mean by symptom-based, or I could not find it. Of course we know what they mean, but hot damn the euphemism shuffling is absurd.

The bias here is frankly ridiculous:
Thus, symptom-based visits may reflect a broader illness behaviour pattern related to chronic stress, bodily vigilance, and vulnerability to persistent post-trigger symptoms.

The combined negative/positive-control analyses showed weak and flat associations for hypothyroidism, a laboratory-confirmed condition, but increasingly strong associations for migraine and IBS, which rely more on symptom-based clinical interpretation. This gradient supports a biopsychosocial understanding, where post-trigger symptoms are influenced not only by the initiating event but also by pre-existing symptom patterns and the diagnostic context as well as indicating that diagnostic pathways involving symptom perception and clinical interpretation may play a greater role where reporting sensitivity is higher.
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Taken together, the findings support a biopsychosocial interpretation: a trigger (infection or prolonged stress) may initiate symptoms, but illness behavior, stress exposure, symptom interpretation, and diagnostic practices shape which individuals develop persistent symptom syndromes and receive these diagnoses.
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This cult pseudoscience is out of control and is a far greater threat to public health than the corruption happening under RFK Jr. This is literally about the consequences of a major pandemic infecting the whole human population, several times for most, and they're still acting as if the only thing that happened was pandemic behavior, not the actual infectious pathogen itself. What an absurd time in human history.
 
Andy said:
Full title: Pre-pandemic care-seeking patterns and subsequent diagnoses of post-COVID condition, post viral fatigue syndrome, and exhaustion disorder: a registry-based cohort study of 208,050 Swedish women

Abstract​

Background​

Women are disproportionately diagnosed with symptom-based conditions, notably post-COVID condition (PCC). In Sweden, as of February 2022, 2.3% of PCR-verified female COVID-19 cases versus 1.6% of male cases had a PCC diagnosis. Post-viral fatigue syndrome (PVFS) and exhaustion disorder (ED), a common and relevant diagnosis in Sweden, share substantial symptom overlap with PCC.

Aims​

To quantify the association between pre-pandemic, symptom-based primary-care visits and subsequent PCC, PVFS, and ED among adult women, adjusting for risk factors for severe COVID-19.

Methods​

We conducted a registry-based prospective cohort study of 208,050 women from the Swedish Medical Birth Register, linked to primary-care data and national sociodemographic registers. The exposure was the frequency of visits for predefined symptom-based conditions during 2015–2019. Adjusted odds ratios (ORs) for diagnoses in 2020–2024 were estimated using logistic regression controlling for BMI, education, age, and region of birth.

Results​

Across 2,431,182 primary-care physician visits, 19% were symptom-based. Women with >8 such visits had higher odds of all three outcomes: PCC (OR 5.45, 95% CI 4.43–6.71), PVFS (OR 7.71, 95% CI 5.97–9.96), and ED (OR 5.32, 95% CI 4.84–5.85). Pre-pandemic BMI and education were not associated with PCC or PVFS but showed some association with ED. Still, 17% of women with PCC had no recorded symptom-based visits before the pandemic.

Conclusions​

Pre-pandemic symptom-based primary-care visits were strongly associated with higher risk of PCC, PVFS, and ED in a dose-dependent way, but modest discrimination underscores heterogeneous individual risk. Patterns suggest other influences alongside biological susceptibility.

Open access
Click to expand...
In a dose- dependent way?

Do they really insinuate a dose = one visit to GP for ‘symptoms’ (although what else do 80% of people go to GP with if they have conditions which have no symptoms ? I’m getting the impression it isn’t just symptoms they mean to insinuate there)

And mean either the seeing the GP makes them hungry to return? Ie attention!

Or more sensibly just see it as the poor people tend to get Quincy tonsilitis or something they can use against them rather than the manly tonsilitis they get themselves and use a different category for or you know gout. ?

Although I’m smelling they seem to be happy to bias both and interpret the latter as the former in their own minds by virtue of the ‘symptoms’ category they are using that only covers 20% of people visiting the GP so us obviously used to secretly select not just on ‘do you have a condition that might have symptoms’

I mean thus us really non-science and outside the realms of sensible observation-based basic skills when you start deliberately using secret categories so only the like-minded know who you are really all selecting into your symptoms category a ‘you know what I mean’ ?
 
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