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0569 COVID-19 and Fatigue: Does Fatigue Persist Beyond Diagnosis?


 
 
 While it is not surprising that COVID is associated with increased fatigue, there is emerging data that COVID-19 symptoms extend well beyond the acute illness period. This phenomenon, known as “Long COVID”, may include fatigue (persistent fatigue post viral infection). The present analysis was undertaken to evaluate fatigue in subjects with and without COVID-19 virus at two time points separated by ~ one year’s time.
 
 
 
 The parent study was a large online study of subjects during the COVID lockdown which was designed to evaluate the effects of social distancing on mood and sleep (n=4052; 3,184 women; X̅age= 46.0 years). The proband subsample of interest was the subjects that reported having COVID as compared to matched controls (whole sample n=242; 195 women [80.6% female]; 206 identified primarily as white [85.1%]; X̅age=42.0 years). Subjects who reported testing positive for COVID-19 provided additional information on COVID-19 symptoms (e.g., severity and duration per symptom). The PROMIS Fatigue scale was administered at time one (T1: April-June 2020) and one year later (T2: January-March 2021). Control subjects were matched based on age, sex, and race to reduce potential confounding or effect modification by these variables.
 
 
 
 The mean PROMIS Fatigue scores for the COVID-19 group and Control groups at baseline (T1) were X̅=52.9 + 8.2 (n=121) and X̅=50.7 + 10.4, (n=121), p<0.06, respectively. The mean PROMIS scores for the COVID-19 group and Control groups at follow-up (T2) were X̅=55.3 + 8.7 (n=121) and X̅=52.6 + 8.4, (n=121), p<0.017, respectively. Overall, the groups were found to significantly differ at both time points, p<0.001. No group-by-time interaction was observed. Both groups exhibited a small increase in fatigue from T1 to T2, p<0.716.
 
 
 
 As expected, there were significant differences in patient reported fatigue between the COVID-19 and the control group. The between group differences were modest. Significant and large scale group differences were not evident for T2 (during follow-up). This suggests that COVID is associated with increased fatigue but we did not detect “Long COVID” effects. This may be due to methodologic considerations. In order to observe “Long COVID” the data will need to be anchored to illness onset and offset.
 
 
 
 Support: 5T32HL00795320;K24AG055602
