[Experiences and impact on the quality of life of people with long COVID]

Abstract

Objective: To explore the experiences of people with persistent COVID in the Basque Country more than a year after the start of the pandemic, in order to understand the health and social impact it has, as well as to detect possible areas for improvement in the care that these people receive in order to develop health programms to support their recovery.

Method: Qualitative phenomenological study. In-depth interviews will be carried out as a data collection technique until saturation of the discourse. Patients of legal age who present persistent COVID symptomatology with an evolution time of more than 12 weeks were included. Contact with the patients was made through the Basque Long COVID Collective. The interviews were carried out and recorded through the ZOOM application. After the literal transcription of the interviews, the thematic analysis will be carried out, identifying the first units of meaning and assigning codes that will later be grouped into the different categories.

Results: 20 patients participated. A total of three main categories emerged from the analysis of the discourses: 1) affecting/impacting patients' quality of life; 2) identifying improvements in healthcare; and 3) comforting aspects.

Conclusions: This study shows the significant impact on the quality of life suffered by these people. It is necessary to design health policies that favour a personalised, comprehensive and multidisciplinary approach to these patients.

Keywords: COVID persistente; Calidad de vida; Coronavirus infections; Delivery of health care; Infecciones por coronavirus; Investigación cualitativa; Long COVID; Prestación de atención de salud; Qualitative research; Quality of life.