Predictors of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Mood Disturbance After Acute Infection, 2022, Sandler, Lloyd et al

[Simon M]

There are good odds that this is the same problem others are having right now with Long Covid. It may be an individual predictor but most will have had a mild acute illness.

It's worth remembering that this is Covid, where severe infection means hospitalised, ICU and sometimes death. Even 'mild' covid is often pretty nasty and might well compare with the illnesses included in the Dubbo study (glandular fever, Ross River Virus and Q fever)

I think it would be worth knowing if illness severity is a predictor, even among mild/moderate Covid cases. If so, it would be a valuable clue to the biology of long Covid, and we need more of these

Also, though illness severity was the only significant predictor in the Dubbo study, I suspect it only explained a modest amount of the problem (I would be surprised if it alone explained even 30% of the variance). So it's one factor among many.

We are definitely not at a stage where individual care is significant enough to try and pin down any cause to any individual.

I agree. And I see the link to illness severity as a causal clue: I'm not sure it tells us anything about how to treat anyone (though following up on clues to understanding what causes the illness might lead to better treatments - that is the logic of DecodeME).

I wouldn't put much thought into those findings, especially in anyone who needs to try and pin it to psychology. They make so many basic mistakes, mostly in false assumptions.

Lloyd and Hickie might well make such mistakes- I hadn't spotted any in Dubbo (though its findings desperately need replication).

 

[chrisb]

Surely one can only take severity of original illness as a factor if cases of insidious onset are rejected.