HEALTHCARE UTILIZATION AND ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH QUALITY OF LIFE IN LONG COVID PATIENTS: AN OBSERVATIONAL STUDY
Abstract
Background. People with long COVID may seek help from primary care clinicians, specialists, rehabilitation services, and complementary care practitioners. How the types of care patients find helpful relate to their current health-related quality of life remains unclear.
Objective. To characterize care profiles based on the services that adults with long COVID identified as helpful and examine their association with health-related quality of life.
Methods. We conducted a cross-sectional online survey among members of a French long COVID patient association. Adults were eligible if their responses met the survey criteria for post-COVID-19 condition. We classified respondents into four profiles based on the care they credited with improvement.
We measured health-related quality of life using the EQ-5D-5L index with the French value set.
Respondents also rated their current health relative to their worst period after acute COVID-19 on a 0to-10 scale. Comparisons across profiles were unadjusted.
Results. Of 418 eligible respondents, 81.6% were women and the median age was 51 years. We classified 386 respondents into four profiles. Mean EQ-5D-5L index scores were 0.75 for the profile characterized by limited conventional care and complementary approaches (n = 58), 0.75 for the primary care-centered profile (n = 85), 0.69 for the profile characterized by primary and specialist care (n = 113), and 0.58 for the profile characterized by specialist care and rehabilitation (n = 130). Mean ratings of current health relative to the worst period were 6.3, 6.0, 5.7, and 5.0, respectively.
Conclusion.Respondents who identified specialist care and rehabilitation as helpful reported the lowest current health-related quality of life. Greater symptom burden may explain both the need for a broader range of services and the lower scores. Longitudinal studies that measure symptom burden before referral and distinguish service use from perceived helpfulness could clarify how care pathways relate to changes in quality of life.
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BibTeX
@misc{bouxom2026healthcare,
title = {{HEALTHCARE UTILIZATION AND ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH QUALITY OF LIFE IN LONG COVID PATIENTS: AN OBSERVATIONAL STUDY}},
author = {Stéphane Bouxom and Hayattte Sabi and Sabrina El Mahi and Béatrice Trombert-Paviot and Pascal Cathébras and Xavier Gocko},
howpublished = {HAL},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
url = {https://hal.science/hal-05858267v1},
note = {CC BY-NC-SA 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - HEALTHCARE UTILIZATION AND ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH QUALITY OF LIFE IN LONG COVID PATIENTS: AN OBSERVATIONAL STUDY
AU - Stéphane Bouxom
AU - Hayattte Sabi
AU - Sabrina El Mahi
AU - Béatrice Trombert-Paviot
AU - Pascal Cathébras
AU - Xavier Gocko
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/11/12
PB - HAL
UR - https://hal.science/hal-05858267v1
AB - Background. People with long COVID may seek help from primary care clinicians, specialists, rehabilitation services, and complementary care practitioners. How the types of care patients find helpful relate to their current health-related quality of life remains unclear. Objective. To characterize care profiles based on the services that adults with long COVID identified as helpful and examine their association with health-related quality of life. Methods. We conducted a cross-sectional online survey among members of a French long COVID patient association. Adults were eligible if their responses met the survey criteria for post-COVID-19 condition. We classified respondents into four profiles based on the care they credited with improvement. We measured health-related quality of life using the EQ-5D-5L index with the French value set. Respondents also rated their current health relative to their worst period after acute COVID-19 on a 0to-10 scale. Comparisons across profiles were unadjusted. Results. Of 418 eligible respondents, 81.6% were women and the median age was 51 years. We classified 386 respondents into four profiles. Mean EQ-5D-5L index scores were 0.75 for the profile characterized by limited conventional care and complementary approaches (n = 58), 0.75 for the primary care-centered profile (n = 85), 0.69 for the profile characterized by primary and specialist care (n = 113), and 0.58 for the profile characterized by specialist care and rehabilitation (n = 130). Mean ratings of current health relative to the worst period were 6.3, 6.0, 5.7, and 5.0, respectively. Conclusion.Respondents who identified specialist care and rehabilitation as helpful reported the lowest current health-related quality of life. Greater symptom burden may explain both the need for a broader range of services and the lower scores. Longitudinal studies that measure symptom burden before referral and distinguish service use from perceived helpfulness could clarify how care pathways relate to changes in quality of life.
ER -