JMIR Form Res. 2022 Sep 7. doi: 10.2196/41410. Online ahead of print.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: There are around 1.3million people in the UK living with the devastating psychological, physical and cognitive consequences of Long COVID. UK guidelines recommend that Long COVID symptoms are managed pragmatically with holistic support for patients’ biopsychosocial needs, including psychological, emotional, and physical health. Self-management strategies such as pacing, prioritisation, and goal setting are vital for the self-management of many Long COVID symptoms. This paper describes the co-development and initial testing of a digital intervention combining peer support with positive psychology approaches for self-managing the physical, emotional, psychological, and cognitive challenges associated with Long COVID.
OBJECTIVE: The objectives of this study were to: i) co-design an intervention with and for people living with Long COVID; ii) test the intervention and study methods; iii) measure changes in participant wellbeing, self-efficacy, fatigue and loneliness; iv) gain understand the types of self-management goals and strategies used by people living with Long COVID.
METHODS: The study employed a pre-post, mixed methods, pragmatic, uncontrolled design. Digital intervention content was co-developed with a lived experience group to meet the needs uncovered during the intervention development and logic mapping phase. The resulting 8-week digital intervention – Hope Program for Long COVID – was attended by 47 participants, who completed pre- and post-program measures of wellbeing, self-efficacy, fatigue and loneliness. Goal-setting data was extracted from the digital platform at the end of the intervention.
RESULTS: The recruitment rate (83.9%) and follow up rate of (59.6%) were encouraging. Positive mental wellbeing (mean difference 6.5, p<.001) and self-efficacy (mean difference 1.1, p=.009) improved from baseline to post-course. All goals set by participants mapped onto the five goal-directed everyday self-management strategies in the TEDSS taxonomy. The most frequent type of goals related to activities strategies, followed by health behaviour and internal strategies.
CONCLUSIONS: The bespoke self-management intervention -Hope Program for Long COVID – was well-attended and follow up was encouraging. The sample characteristics largely mirrored those of the wider UK population living with Long COVID. Although not powered to detect statistically significant changes, the preliminary data shows improvements in self-efficacy and positive mental wellbeing. Our next trial (ISRCTN: 11868601) will employ a non-randomised waitlist control design to further examine intervention efficacy.
PMID:36166651 | DOI:10.2196/41410
