ArticleInfection2023
Post-COVID-19 condition is not only a question of persistent symptoms: structured screening including health-related quality of life reveals two separate clusters of post-COVID.
Article in Infection, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed.
- Biopsychosocial factors associated with health-related quality of life in long COVID: a matched case-control study in primary care.BMC primary care · 2026Article
- Lessons from irritable bowel syndrome: potential for understanding and managing post-COVID.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Review
- Identifying subtypes of Long COVID: a systematic review.EClinicalMedicine · 2026Article
- Understanding quality-of-life patterns in long COVID: How Symptoms and socioeconomic conditions shape patient wellbeing.PloS one · 2026Observational
- Possible link between steatotic liver diseases, severe COVID-19 and cognitive impairment in post-COVID-19 syndrome.Infection · 2025Article
- Longterm course of neuropsychological symptoms and ME/CFS after SARS-CoV-2-infection: a prospective registry study.European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience · 2024Article
- Illness presentation and quality of life in myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome and post COVID-19 condition: a pilot Australian cross-sectional study.Quality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation · 2024Article
- Impact of pre-existing mental health diagnoses on development of post-COVID and related symptoms: a claims data-based cohort study.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Article
- Post-COVID-19 physical and cognitive impairments and associations with quality of life: a cross-sectional study.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2024Article
- [Outpatient Long/Post-COVID Care: Barriers and Desires of Affected Persons to Medical Care].Gesundheitswesen (Bundesverband der Arzte des Offentlichen Gesundheitsdienstes (Germany)) · 2023Article
- Variations and Predictors of Post-COVID Syndrome Severity in Patients Attending a Post-COVID Outpatient Clinic.Journal of clinical medicine · 2023Article
- Post-COVID-19 Syndrome in Non-Hospitalized Individuals: Healthcare Situation 2 Years after SARS-CoV-2 Infection.Viruses · 2023Article
- Clustering Analysis Identified Three Long COVID Phenotypes and Their Association with General Health Status and Working Ability.Journal of clinical medicine · 2023Article
- Regulatory T Cells (Tregs) and COVID-19: Unveiling the Mechanisms, and Therapeutic Potentialities with a Special Focus on Long COVID.Vaccines · 2023Review
- Post-COVID-19 Status and Its Physical, Nutritional, Psychological, and Social Effects in Working-Age Adults-A Prospective Questionnaire Study.Journal of clinical medicine · 2022Article
- Quality of Life in Post-COVID-19 Patients after Hospitalization.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- A scoping review of regulatory T cell dynamics in convalescent COVID-19 patients - indications for their potential involvement in the development of Long COVID?Frontiers in immunology · 2022Article
- The therapeutic potential of non-invasive brain stimulation for the treatment of Long-COVID-related cognitive fatigue.Frontiers in immunology · 2022Review
- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
17 authors.
Funding
Abstract
purposeSome patients experience long-term sequelae after infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). However, despite a present post-COVID condition, defined as "any symptom lasting longer than 12 weeks," only a subset of patients search for medical help and therapy.
methodWe invited all adults with a positive real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) for SARS-CoV-2 between March 2020 and September 2021 (n = 4091) in the city of Jena to answer a standardized questionnaire including demographic information, the course of the acute infection and current health status. K-means-clustering of quality of life (QoL) was used to explore post-COVID subgroups.
resultsA total of 909 participants at a median interval of 367 (IQR 291/403) days after acute infection were included in the analysis. Of those, 643 (70.7%) complained of having experienced persistent symptoms at the time of the survey. Cluster analysis based on QoL revealed two subgroups of people with persistent post-COVID symptoms. Whereas 189/643 participants (29.4%) showed markedly diminished QoL, normal QoL was detected in 454/643 individuals (70.6%).
conclusionDespite persistent symptoms being reported by nearly three quarters of participants, only one-third of these described a significant reduction in QoL (cluster 1), whereas the other two-thirds reported a near-normal QoL (cluster 2), thus indicating a differentiation between "post-COVID disease" and "post-COVID condition". The prevalence of clinically relevant post-COVID disease was at least 20.7%. Health policies should focus on this subset.
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Registered trials
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