Nearly all patients at long-COVID clinic had fatigue, half slept poorlyNearly all long-COVID patients at an Ohio health system reported moderate to severe fatigue, and about half said they had serious sleep disruptions, which were up to three times more common in Black participants, according to findings presented this week at the Associated Professional Sleep Societies' annual meeting.The research abstract was published May 25 in an online supplement of Sleep.Cleveland Clinic researchers parsed data from 962 patients at the health system's COVID-19 clinic who completed the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement (PROMIS) sleep disturbance and fatigue questionnaires from February to November 2021.PROMIS scores are standardized to the US adult population on a T-scale, with sleep disturbance and fatigue scores of 60 or higher indicating at least moderate severity, and 70 or higher indicating severe impact.T-scores among the 682 patients who completed the sleep disturbance questionnaire were, on average, 57.7; 41.2% had at least moderate sleep problems, while 7.3% had severe disruptions.
The average fatigue T-score was 63.0; 68.6% had at least moderate fatigue, and 22.6% were severely fatigued.Relative to patients reporting normal or mildly disturbed sleep, those with moderate or severe impairments had a higher body mass index (BMI) (32.3 vs 30.9 kg/m2), were more likely to be of Black race (40.0 vs 41.0), and had worse scores for generalized anxiety disorder (2.8 vs 1.6) and fatigue (66.7 vs 60.4), regardless of age, sex, or infection severity.
After adjustment, Black race was linked to moderate or severe sleep difficulties (odds ratio, 3.42).In an American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) news release, lead author Cinthya