Browsing by Author "Kallio, Paula"

Objective: Fatigue is a common symptom of the acute phase of the COVID-19 disease. According to the existing literature, fatigue is also commonly experienced after the acute phase of the disease. Only one study has examined fatigue six months after the acute phase of the COVID-19 so more research on persistent fatigue after the COVID-19 disease is needed. The aim of this study was to explore whether COVID-19 patients have more fatigue six months after the acute phase of the disease compared to controls. In addition, the associations between fatigue and the level of care, duration of the hospital stay, gender, and age were examined. Methods: A total of 175 participants took part in the study. 46 (37 % women) of the COVID-19 patients were treated in the intensive care unit (ICU), 46 (67 % women) in the non-intensive ward and 41 (76 % women) did not receive hospital care. In addition, there were 42 (60 % women) healthy controls. The mean age of the participants was 54 years. Fatigue was measured with the MFI-20 which consists of five subscales: general fatigue, physical fatigue, decreased motivation, decreased activity and mental fatigue. A multivariate analysis of variance was conducted to examine the differences in fatigue between the three patient groups and controls, when the effects of age and gender and their interaction were controlled. A multivariate regression analysis was performed to investigate the association between fatigue and the duration of the hospital stay in the patients who had been hospitalized, when the effects of age and gender were controlled. Results: Participants in the ICU, ward and home groups experienced more fatigue compared to controls six months after the acute phase of the COVID-19 disease. All patient groups differed significantly from controls in general and physical fatigue and the ICU and home groups differed significantly from controls in decreased motivation and activity. There were no differences in mental fatigue between the groups. There were no differences in fatigue between participants in the ICU, ward and home groups, nor was there an association between the duration of the hospital stay and fatigue. There was a significant difference in fatigue symptom profiles between male and female participants. Gender and age also had a significant interaction effect on fatigue: the difference in the profiles for the two genders was highlighted in younger participants. Age, however, had no independent effect on fatigue. Conclusions: In line with previous studies, COVID-19 patients differed from healthy controls in fatigue. As a new finding, it was discovered that patients who had not received hospital care also had persistent fatigue after the acute phase of the COVID-19 disease. This emphasizes the need to take possible fatigue into account regardless of whether the patient was hospitalized in the acute phase of the disease. Future research should focus on identifying risk factors for fatigue experienced after the COVID-19 disease. In addition, it is important to examine how large a percentage of the patients experience clinically significant fatigue.