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. 2022 Nov 29;11(23):7067.
doi: 10.3390/jcm11237067.

Is the Pandemic Wearing Us Out? A Cross-Sectional Study of the Prevalence of Fatigue in Adult Twins without Previous SARS-CoV-2 Infection

Sophia Kristina Rupp  1 , Katja Weimer  2 , Miriam Goebel-Stengel  1   3 , Paul Enck  1 , Stephan Zipfel  1 , Andreas Stengel  1   4
Affiliations

Is the Pandemic Wearing Us Out? A Cross-Sectional Study of the Prevalence of Fatigue in Adult Twins without Previous SARS-CoV-2 Infection

Sophia Kristina Rupp et al. J Clin Med. .

Abstract

During the pandemic, mental health was not only impaired in people after a SARS-CoV-2 infection, but also in people without previous infection. This is the first study on twins without prior SARS-CoV-2 infection to estimate the influence of genetic components and shared as well as individual environments on pandemic-associated fatigue. The study sample included 55 monozygotic and 45 dizygotic twin pairs. A total of 34.5% reported an increase in fatigue since the pandemic. A significant correlation was shown between the responses within monozygotic (χ2[1] = 11.14, p = 0.001) and dizygotic pairs (χ2[1] = 18.72, p < 0.001). In all pandemic-associated fatigue dimensions, individual environment (ranging from e2 = 0.64 to e2 = 0.84) and heritability (ranging from h2 = 0.32 to h2 = 1.04) seem to have the highest impact. The number of comorbidities significantly correlated with physical fatigue (Spearman’s ρ = 0.232, p < 0.001) and psychological impairment due to pandemic measures with the total fatigue score (Spearman’s ρ = 0.243, p < 0.001). However, calculated ANCOVAs with these significant correlations as covariates showed no significant influence on the mean values of the respective fatigue dimensions. Susceptibility to pandemic-associated fatigue may be genetically and environmentally determined, while intensity is also influenced by individual components. The prevalence of fatigue is high even in individuals without prior SARS-CoV-2 infection. Future mental health prevention and intervention programs should be implemented to alleviate the impact of the pandemic on the global population.

Keywords: brain fog; mental health; psychosomatic; somatoform; twins.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Correlation between psychological impairment due to general, political pandemic measures (curfews, public closures, etc.) and total fatigue score.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Estimates of heritability (h2), common (c2) and individual environmental (e2) effects on fatigue dimensions of twin pairs (n = 24) concordantly experiencing increased fatigue since the COVID-19 pandemic according to the Falconer’s formula. Notes: MFI = Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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