The emotional well-being of Long COVID patients in relation to their symptoms, social support and stigmatization... 2023 Samper-Pardo et al

Full title: The emotional well-being of Long COVID patients in relation to their symptoms, social support and stigmatization in social and health services: a qualitative study

Abstract

Background
Long COVID patients have experienced a decline in their quality of life due to, in part but not wholly, its negative emotional impact. Some of the most prevalent mental health symptoms presented by long COVID patients are anxiety, depression, and sleep disorders. As such, the need has arisen to analyze the personal experiences of these patients to understand how they are managing their daily lives while dealing with the condition. The objective of this study is to increase understanding about the emotional well-being of people diagnosed with long COVID.

Methods
A qualitative design was created and carried out using 35 patients, with 17 participants being interviewed individually and 18 of them taking part in two focus groups. The participating patients were recruited in November and December 2021 from Primary Health Care (PHC) centers in the city of Zaragoza (Northern Spain) and from the Association of Long COVID Patients in Aragon. The study topics were emotional well-being, social support networks, and experience of discrimination. All an inductive thematic content analyses were performed iteratively using NVivo software.

Results
The Long COVID patients identified low levels of self-perceived well-being due to their persistent symptoms, as well as limitations in their daily lives that had been persistent for many months. Suicidal thoughts were also mentioned by several patients. They referred to anguish and anxiety about the future as well as a fear of reinfection or relapse and returning to work. Many of the participants reported that they have sought the help of a mental health professional. Most participants identified discriminatory situations in health care.

Conclusions
It is necessary to continue researching the impact that Long COVID has had on mental health, as well as to provide Primary Health Care professionals with evidence that can guide the emotional treatment of these patients

Open access, https://bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12888-022-04497-8

 

Invalid. Invalid. Just completely invalid nonsense. Not even pretending to take this seriously, this is to research what an editorial is to journalism.

There is no need to do this when the problem is symptoms of illness that impair functioning. Absolutely ridiculous fanatical obsession with their belief system. This is as valid as finding people locked up in cages, finding they're very unhappy about the whole thing and setting an entertainment program instead of getting them out, in fact being unable to process that it's the being locked up in cages that is the problem. Absurd.

This is why they largely avoid asking simple direct questions. Every time they don't get the answer they want, so they just put in whatever they want instead.

The patients explain it clearly, it's very simple to understand: illness is disabling, disability impairs functioning. And still they can't do anything else but obsess over imaginary alternative explanations.

 

I don't agree with your criticism. I looked through the paper. It doesn't treat long Covid as psychological. It doesn't treat the suffering of people with LC as fake. It cites factors such as grief over becoming disabled, social isolation caused by reduced social functioning, stigma, discrimination by doctors, and the effect of the disease on the brain as reasons people experience emotional problems. Research that thoroughly documents the emotional suffering that LC causes will not lead directly to a cure but is still important.

 

Yes, very important to address the mental health effects of having LC or any chronic illness. How else are pwLC improve their emotional well-being and hopefully lower the high suicide rate for LC (and ME).

 

I think in NZ giving LC people access to money and free competent doctors would make a huge difference. It's a shock to people on the LC group I have been observing to that they don't qualify for ACC payments and don't get enough money to live on.

 

Yes it will go a long way, (maybe ME next)…the frontline workers that got covid from their work probably will get a pay out by worker compensation schemes. A nurse in NZ recently got full disability from their Accident Compensation Corporation but I doubt it is a seamless process and you have to prove you got covid from workplace.

Yes, it is the most hardest wall to hit when you realise your country does not support adequately people with mental health difficulties or disability from chronic conditions. I am afraid it is a long and sad decline over many years especially the lack of funding in the mental health sector in favour of other specialties expensive procedures (all good for the public but we were always the last in line). They were swamped in the 2010’s, now it is considerably worse.

The hidden data not accounted for is suicides due to LC, I have read a lot online for overseas but I gather it will be happening in Australasia. I know it does happen in ME but is not discussed publicly often. Death by suicide is a judgement by the coroner’s court and is too early I think here to have these processes for LC completed and data made public.

Edited