{"doi":"10.1101/2022.12.07.22283203","title":"Physical and mental health disability associated with long-COVID: Baseline results from a US nationwide cohort","abstract":"Importance: Persistent symptoms after SARS-COV-2 infection, or long-COVID, may occur in anywhere from 10-55% of those who have had COVID-19, but the extent of impact on daily functioning and disability remains unquantified. Objective: To characterize physical and mental disability associated with long-COVID. Design: Cross-sectional analysis of baseline data from a cohort study. Setting: Online US nationwide survey. Participants: Adults 18 years of age and older who live in the US who either report a history of COVID-19 illness (n=8,874) or report never having had COVID-19 (n=633). Main Outcome and Measures: Self-reported mobility disability (difficulty walking a quarter of a mile and/or up 10 stairs, instrumental activities of daily living [IADL] disability (difficulty doing light or heavy housework), and mental fatigue as measured by the Wood Mental Fatigue Inventory (WMFI). Results: Of 7,926 participants with long-COVID, the median age was 45 years, 84% were female, 89% self-reported white race, and 7.4% self-reported Hispanic/Latino ethnicity. Sixty-five percent of long-COVID participants were classified as having at least one disability, compared to 6% of those with resolved-COVID (n=948) and 14% of those with no-COVID (n=633). Of long-COVID participants, about 1% and 5% were classified as critically physically disabled or mentally fatigued, respectively. Age, prior comorbidity, increased BMI, female gender, hospitalization for COVID-19, non-white race, and multi-race were all associated with significantly higher disability burden. Dizziness at the time of infection (33% non-hospitalized, 39% hospitalized) was associated with all five disability components in both hospitalized and non-hospitalized groups. Heavy limbs, dyspnea, and tremors were associated with four of the five components of disability in the non-hospitalized group, and heavy limbs was associated with four of the five components in the hospitalized group. Vaccination was protective against development of disability. Conclusion and Relevance: We observed a high burden of physical and mental disability associated with long-COVID which has serious implications for individual and societal health that may be partially mitigated by vaccination. Longitudinal characterization and evaluation of COVID-19 patients is necessary to identify patterns of recovery and treatment options.","journal":"medRxiv","year":2022,"id":297094,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":13,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.526,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2022-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":402354,"name":"Eryka Wentz","orcid":"0000-0002-9056-0436","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":984584,"name":"Zhanmo Ni","orcid":"0009-0006-9636-0482","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":979247,"name":"Karine Yenokyan","orcid":"0000-0001-6835-9405","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":985072,"name":"Candelaria Coggiano","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":228276,"name":"Shruti H. Mehta","orcid":"0000-0002-2523-0959","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":115227,"name":"Priya Duggal","orcid":"0000-0001-5809-2081","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":391317,"name":"Bryan Lau","orcid":"0000-0002-2355-612X","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":22,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T00:31:21.257700Z","pmid":"36523402","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}