Remember the relief you felt when COVID-19 restrictions were lifted? Well, picture this: you’re out with your friends, but suddenly you can’t even walk for five minutes without feeling exhausted. Your heart is racing and you are breathing heavily.
“my heart is stuck in this tachycardia, it’s just, please, could you just listen to me.“
This is the reality for many people experiencing long COVID.
Living with Long COVID
Individuals with Long COVID often suffer from a spectrum of symptoms, including fatigue, arrhythmia, and breathlessness. These can vary widely between individuals and can persist for long periods of time after the initial COVID-19 infection. Living with this condition can take a toll on one’s mental health, especially when there’s little information available on how to manage the symptoms effectively. However, to truly support individuals with Long COVID, we need to learn more about their unique experiences with this novel condition.
Potential psychological intervention
The truth is that we still have a lot learn when it comes to effectively treating these challenges. One potential intervention is mindfulness-based interventions, initially developed to help individuals with chronic physical conditions to cope with their illness. It involves training participants to be fully aware in the present moment and help cultivate a sense of acceptance of one’s feelings and circumstances. These interventions can reduce distress, low mood and improve one’s quality of life.
Give the following mindfulness exercise a go and leave a comment on how useful you found it!
Early and late treatment
Generally, getting early access to treatment is crucial for better wellbeing, as delays can lead to further physical and mental complications. However, the impact of early treatment on long COVID remains unclear due to the unique circumstances of the initial COVID-19 outbreak. Lockdowns, social isolation, and economic instability can all play a role in shaping individuals’ perceptions of their illness and the effect of interventions. By delving deeper into this issue, we can gain valuable insights into how the timing of an intervention can influence how an individual copes with Long COVID.
What did we aim to do?
Our study aimed to shed light on the experiences of patients living with long COVID. We investigated the effectiveness of the COMFORT group, a mindfulness-based intervention for long COVID patients in an NHS service in London.
Altogether, this study aimed to answer 3 questions:
- What are patients’ experiences of living with Long COVID?
- What is the effect of the COMFORT group for patients with Long COVID?
- How do patients who took part in COMFORT 1 (early treatment) differ in perceptions of effectiveness of the intervention compared to patients who took part in COMFORT 7 (late treatment)?
How did we do this?
8 Long COVID patients (7 women) were recruited via email. They were eligible if they had participated in at least 4/6 weeks of the COMFORT group and had contracted COVID-19 in March 2020. Online semi-structured interviews were conducted to explore their experiences of Long COVID and the COMFORT group. The interviews were analysed using grounded theory to build a model of patient experiences.
What did we find?
4 themes were identified from the analysis:
Social Connection
The COMFORT group provided a sense of social connection with others who shared similar experiences. Despite feeling unsupported by healthcare professionals, the group provided practical recommendations for managing symptoms and helped normalise their difficulties. Patients from COMFORT 7 specifically connected over their inability to perform daily activities. Peer support networks create community, offer practical advice, and boost emotional wellbeing.
Impact of Symptoms on Wellbeing
Patients from COMFORT 1 highlighted their challenges in living with their physical symptoms, while COMFORT 7 patients emphasized fluctuating symptoms and uncertainty about their recovery. Both groups desired initial support for physical symptoms, and those who received it were more pleased with the group and felt hopeful about improvement
Management Strategies
Patients found mindfulness beneficial in managing their long COVID. They valued group as a safe space where they could receive compassion from others. However, patients in COMFORT 7 believed that combining mindfulness with other tools, such as lifestyle changes, was more effective in managing their symptoms in the long term.
Expectations of the Group
Patients had different expectations of the COMFORT group initially, with some wanting a peer support group to discuss long COVID and others focusing on mindfulness. Patients who were open to mindfulness benefited from the group by changing their perspective of their illness and dealing with distressing feelings.
What can we learn from this?
- If there is one thing you will take away from this post, it is the importance of social connection in managing long COVID. It is crucial that patients have a support network in which they can share their experiences and provide and receive advice.
- Interventions like the COMFORT group should be tailored to the needs of patients.
- A multi-faceted approach to managing long COVID, combining mindfulness practices with other tools like lifestyle changes and social support, can lead to sustainable improvement. To achieve this, healthcare providers should collaborate with medical professionals from different fields to integrate these tools into patient care.
Where do we go from here?
When it comes to interpreting the findings of this study, there are some limitations that we need to consider. The insights on mindfulness-based interventions for long COVID are promising, but it is important to note that the study was limited to one NHS service in London. So, we can’t just take these findings and apply them to other services or policies without first replicating the study on a larger scale with a more diverse group of patients.
It is also important to note that this study only focused on patients who received treatment for long COVID either early or late after being diagnosed with COVID-19 in March 2020. What about patients who were diagnosed much later, say in 2022? We need to know how receiving treatment early or late affects these patients too. So, future studies should build on this one and explore the long-term effects of mindfulness-based interventions on patients with long COVID.
References:
Aiyegbusi, O. L., Hughes, S. E., Turner, G., Rivera, S. C., McMullan, C., Chandan, J. S., … & TLC Study Group. (2021). Symptoms, complications and management of long COVID: a review. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 114(9), 428-442.
Hofmann, S. G., & Gómez, A. F. (2017). Mindfulness-based interventions for anxiety and depression. Psychiatric clinics, 40(4), 739-749.
Kabat-Zinn, J. (2009). Wherever you go, there you are: Mindfulness meditation in everyday life. Hachette UK.
Kupfer, D. J., Frank, E., & Perel, J. M. (1989). The advantage of early treatment intervention in recurrent depression. Archives of General Psychiatry.
Whitaker, M., Elliott, J., Chadeau-Hyam, M., Riley, S., Darzi, A., Cooke, G., … & Elliott, P. (2022). Persistent COVID-19 symptoms in a community study of 606,434 people in England. Nature communications, 13(1), 1957.