Background: In people with post COVID-19 condition (pC-19), rehabilitation (REHAB) interventions are recommended, however, more investigation on how to best apply REHAB to this population is needed. Specifically, the difference in recovery with REHAB vs natural recovery alone and how to best address symptom heterogeneity in people with pC-19 haven´t yet been studied.
Objective: To examine the effect of symptom-based REHAB compared to usual care on quality of life (QoL) in pC-19.
Methods: Patients with pC-19 were randomized to receive either usual-care (control-group, CG) or 3-week multimodal inpatient REHAB, tailored to the patient?s symptom cluster (intervention-group, IG). Patients were categorized based on their most significant baseline symptom into one of three clusters: fatigue, cognitive, or somatic. Primary outcome was change in QoL (physical [PSS] & mental summary scale [MSS]) measured by the SF-12. From a calculated sample size of n=132, n=116 have so far been recruited: NCT05172206.
Results: As of writing, 66 patients have completed the trial and been analysed (IG: n=27, 51±13y; CG: n=39, 50±10y; mild COVID-19 infection: [IG] 89%, [CG] 92%; unable to work due to pC-19: [IG] 48%, [CG] 35%). Comparing symptom-based REHAB to usual care, significant between-group differences in QoL change exist (PSS ?5.8pts 95% CI[1.8 to 9.8] p=0.005; MSS ?4.8pts 95% CI[0.2 to 9.5] p=0.043) in favour of the IG. Within-group QoL-changes are only significant in the IG: PSS +6.1±9.2pts; MSS +4.4±8.4pts (all p<0.05).
Conclusion: Preliminary analyses reveal that symptom-based REHAB can increase QoL and may be superior to natural recovery in pC-19.