The following article was originally published in the Ohio Capital Journal and published on News5Cleveland.com under a content-sharing agreement.
Researchers from Ohio State University have found that Long COVID has kept people from working at the same capacity as they had before they were infected, causing significant issues in their personal and professional lives.
A new study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicinespotlights patients who had the disease, which causes symptoms that can last three months or more after exposure to the virus, and the “significant challenges” they can face in maintaining their jobs and lives.
The research included individual interviews with 21 adult patients of the post-COVID recovery clinic at the Ohio State Wexner Medical Center in 2022. The majority of patients were women, with ages ranging from 19 to 68, and most were first infected in 2020.
“For those who continued working after their COVID-19 infection, the effort and energy required for work left little capacity to participate in other life activities and made it difficult to attend recommended health care appointments,” the study states. “Participants reported financial impacts of changes in employment including loss of income and changes in insurance, which were compounded by high health care costs.”
A quarter of the patients who took part in the study reported “significant activity limitations” and two-thirds reported having a disability. Those with Long COVID show a lower likelihood of full-time employment and higher potential for unemployment compared to those without Long COVID, according to the study.
“Due to this reduced capacity to work, it is estimated that Long COVID resulted in a minimum of $170 billion in lost wages in the USA in 2022,” researchers wrote.
The authors of the study recognized there has been previous research on Long COVID, such as the roles of employers and coworkers in helping or hindering individuals with Long COVID trying to stay at work, and the flexibility needed due to the “fluctuating nature” of the illness.
But the research from Ohio State centers on interviews with patients to reveal “what patients go through before they cut their hours, stop working or lose their jobs.”
“For many individuals we talked to, their lives have been completely changed because of this chronic condition,” the study’s lead author, Ohio State Assistant Professor of General Internal Medicine Sarah MacEwan, said in a statement on the study. “And that’s really changed how they see themselves, how they experience life, how they interact with their families, how they provide for their families.”
The financial instability of unemployment or limited employment makes for “extremely difficult choices” for individuals with Long COVID, but making clinicians aware of these challenges can help medical professionals connect patients to resources, like mental health experts or workplace accommodation assistance.
Back in August, several U.S. senators asked the Social Security Administration to help those with Long COVID gain disability benefits,signing on to a letter urging transparency and consideration of expanding medical issues covered by the SSA in its Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income programs.
In a June 2023 guide for health professionalson Long COVID, the SSA said it considers an adult disabled “if the individual is unable to do any substantial gainful work activity because of any medically determinable physical or mental impairment(s) that has lasted, or can be expected to last, for a continuous period of at least 12 months, or that is expected to result in death.”
Bringing health care professionals to the level needed to bridge what the study called the “gap in understanding the perspectives of patients” being treated for Long COVID is a necessary improvement needed, the research showed.
“One thing we’ve uncovered through this work is people not being believed by their providers about their symptoms or being brushed off or pushed into other diagnoses that they feel don’t reflect their experience,” according to MacEwan. “It’s a real question of whether they are getting what they need from the providers they’re able to reach where they are.”
