A multidisciplinary study will evaluate clinical, socioeconomic and environmental aspects and the effect of interventions based on diet and exercise to alleviate chronic COVID

A multidisciplinary team made up of researchers from the Universitat Jaume I of Castelló and the University of València; clinical professionals from the General University Hospital of Castelló and La Plana and the Public Health Centre of Castelló have launched a project that will evaluate the prevalence of symptoms, socioeconomic impacts, risk factors and the effectiveness of non-pharmacological interventions for chronic COVID.

According to the main researcher of the study at the UJI, Juana María Delgado Saborit from the Perinatal Epidemiology, Environmental Health and Clinical Research group, "the long-term effects associated with chronic COVID can have a considerable impact on the quality of life of those affected, and on their work and social environment, which can become limiting". Therefore, "it is important to identify the risk predictors associated with the prevalence of chronic COVID and its impact on the population. This information is very valuable for identifying patients at risk of developing chronic COVID, establishing preventive actions and generating scientific evidence that can be applied to clinical practice.

On the other hand, Juana María Delgado explained that "it is necessary to identify treatments that alleviate the symptoms suffered by patients with chronic COVID, in order to help them return to their daily lives. Such information is very useful for defining treatments that facilitate patients’ recovery. We want to evaluate three treatments that do not require the use of drugs, and are based on exercise and diet.

The project will be developed in two phases. The first is an observational study with the aim of establishing the range of symptoms of chronic COVID and its socio-economic impact on the affected population. The assessment will also take into account risk factors for developing chronic COVID, including clinical course of infection, previous comorbidities, socio-economic, environmental and lifestyle aspects associated with increased prevalence and duration of chronic COVID.

The team expects to collect more than a thousand responses through an open form hosted on a secure platform used in this type of study, to protect participants’ data. One of the objectives of this first phase is to facilitate the development of policies aimed at alleviating the negative impacts of chronic COVID symptoms on sufferers.

In the second phase of the study, the team will analyse non-pharmacological interventions to determine their effectiveness in improving the symptoms of chronic COVID. Specifically, two interventions based on diet and a third on physical and pulmonary rehabilitation will be evaluated. To do so, the group integrates professionals in physiotherapy, dietetics, nursing, biochemistry, medicine and epidemiology. The aim is, as in the first phase, to help establish intervention programmes to help patients recover.

Participants in this second phase will be randomly assigned to one of the three interventions or to a fourth group that will serve as a control. There will be a fifth group of participants who have had COVID-19 but do not have symptoms of chronic COVID as a healthy control group. The interventions will last for three months and will be followed up by the professionals in charge of adjusting each intervention to the improvement of each participant.

Volunteers participating in the study will fill in questionnaires to reflect the evolution of their symptoms. Biological samples (blood, urine, faeces and hair) will also be taken before and after the end of the intervention to monitor the evolution of certain health markers. The plan is to have 180 participants in this phase, 30 with chronic COVID for each of the interventions, 60 for the control group also with chronic COVID and 30 for the healthy control group made up of people who have had COVID but do not present symptoms derived from it.

The research "Chronic COVID: evaluation of the prevalence of symptoms, socioeconomic impacts, risk factors and effectiveness of non-pharmacological interventions to alleviate its effects" is funded by the Valencian regional government (Generalitat Valenciana).