Many people with prolonged Covid – the condition where Covid symptoms persist for weeks or months after infection – have a lower health-related quality of life than people with some advanced cancers, recent research suggests.
Fatigue is the symptom with the biggest impact on people's daily lives, according to a study led by researchers at University College London (UCL) and the University of Exeter.
Their health-related quality of life scores were also lower than those of people with advanced metastatic cancer, such as stage 4 lung cancer. Overall, the long-term impact of Covid on patients' daily activities was worse than that for stroke patients and comparable to people with Parkinson's disease.
"Shockingly, our research has found that prolonged Covid can leave people with fatigue and a worse quality of life than some cancers, yet support and understanding are not at the same level," said the study's author, Prof. William Henley.
"We urgently need more research to support people trying to manage this new debilitating condition."
