Twelve key outcomes have been identified in assessing Long COVID treatments, which are recommended for use in future research and clinical practice globally.
The outcomes, established via a large consensus study consisting of 1,535 international experts and patients from 71 countries, identified 24 core outcomes of Long COVID in adults, 12 of which were considered a priority.
The outcomes prioritised for use in future clinical research studies and clinical practice are:
- Survival
- Fatigue
- Pain
- Post-exertion symptoms, and “functioning, symptoms and conditions”
- Cardiovascular
- Respiratory
- Neurological
- Cognitive
- Mental/psychiatric systems
- Overall physical function
- Work/occupational and study changes, and
- ‘Recovery’.
Establishing a set of clear outcomes will accelerate the development of evidence-based treatments for Long COVID by guiding the research community on collecting the most meaningful data on whether a treatment works.
It will also ensure the consistency of measurements and allow for easier collation and comparison of results across clinical trials and other studies.
COVID-19 symptoms persisting for more than months after the initial infection has gone are known as ‘Long COVID’ or ‘post-COVID syndrome’.
Last year, it was estimated that over two million people in the UK were living with Long COVID. While there are common features, patients can experience a wide range of other symptoms across all bodily systems, making identification of the key symptoms challenging.
The study team identified all commonly-reported outcomes in research to date, then used a ‘Delphi’ technique to reach consensus among the stakeholders.
The pre-print research was co-authored by Dr Tim Nicholson from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King’s College London.
“The rapid development of this Core Outcome Set for Long COVID by the global research community in partnership with patients with lived experience has achieved a key milestone in the development of evidence based treatments by allowing optimisation, coordination and efficient collation of data in research and clinical services,” says Dr Nicholson.
Researchers must now go through a similar process to identify the best measures for assessing these outcomes.
These will need to be feasible for use across the world, including in resource-poor settings. It will also need to be done on an accelerated timescale to inform treatment trials, other studies, and clinical services to meet this major new healthcare challenge.
