Document Type
Article
Publication Date
6-1-2025
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Long-term sequelae after SARS-CoV-2 infection may impact health-related quality-of-life (HRQoL), yet it is unknown how HRQoL changes during recovery. We compared patient-reported HRQoL among adults with COVID-19-like illness who tested SARS-CoV-2 positive (COVID+) with those who tested negative (COVID-).
METHODS: Participants in this prospective, multicenter, longitudinal registry study were enrolled from December 2020 through August 2022 and completed 3-month follow-up assessments until 12 months after enrollment. Participants were adults (≥18 years) with acute symptoms suggestive of COVID-19 who received a Food and Drug Administration-approved SARS-CoV-2 test. Participants received questions from PROMIS-29 (subscales: physical function, anxiety, depression, fatigue, social participation, sleep disturbance, and pain interference) and PROMIS SF-8a (cognitive function). Latent transition analysis was used to identify meaningful patterns in HRQoL scores over time; 4 HRQoL categories were compared descriptively and using multivariable regression. Inverse probability weighting was used to adjust for covariate imbalance.
RESULTS: There were 1096 (75%) COVID+ and 371 (25%) COVID-. Four distinct well-being classes emerged: optimal overall, poor mental, poor physical, and poor overall HRQoL. COVID+ participants were more likely to return to the optimal HRQoL class compared to COVID- participants. The most substantial transition from poor physical to optimal HRQoL occurred by 3 months, whereas movement from poor mental to optimal HRQoL occurred by 9 months.
CONCLUSIONS: In adults with COVID-19-like illness, COVID+ participants demonstrated meaningful recovery in their physical HRQoL by 3 months after infection, but mental HRQoL took longer to improve. Suboptimal HRQoL at 3 to 12 months after infection remained in approximately 20%.
TRIAL REGISTRATION: NCT04610515.
Recommended Citation
Wisk, Lauren; Gottlieb, Michael; Chen, Peizheng; Yu, Huihui; O'Laughlin, Kelli; Stephens, Kari; Nichol, Graham; Montoy, Juan Carlos; Rodriguez, Robert; Santangelo, Michelle; Gatling, Kristyn; Spatz, Erica; Venkatesh, Arjun; Rising, Kristin; Hill, Mandy; Huebinger, Ryan; Idris, Ahamed; Willis, Michael; Kean, Efrat; McDonald, Samuel; Elmore, Joann; and Weinstein, Robert, "Association of SARS-CoV-2 With Health-related Quality of Life 1 Year After Illness Using Latent Transition Analysis" (2025). Department of Emergency Medicine Faculty Papers. Paper 263.
https://jdc.jefferson.edu/emfp/263
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
PubMed ID
40496983
Language
English
Comments
This article is the author's final published version in Open Forum Infectious Diseases, Volume 12, Issue 6], June 2025, ofaf278.
The published version is available at https://doi.org/10.1093/ofid/ofaf278.
Copyright © The Author(s) 2025