Post-COVID: Prof. Dr. Regine Mößle at the Congress for General Medicine and Family Medicine

Post-COVID is one of the most pressing challenges of our time and affects millions of people worldwide. The disease causes not only massive individual suffering, but also poses immense challenges to the health system.

At the Congress for General Medicine and Family Medicine in Würzburg, Prof. Dr. Regine Mößle, professor of psychology at IB Hochschule in Stuttgart, presented the research results from her post-COVID study, which she developed together with the psychology students Patricia Alender (B.Sc.) and Helen Dippon (M.Sc.).

In Prof. Mößle's longer-term research project, in a first step the satisfaction of post-COVID patients in family medical care is examined. We had the opportunity to speak with Prof. Mößle about her Post-COVID study.

Ms Mößle, what is Post-COVID about? – One speaks of Long- or Post-COVID when, after an infection with COVID-19, symptoms continue or new symptoms appear that are related to the disease. Frequent symptoms are pathological exhaustion with exercise intolerance, cognitive impairments such as concentration or memory problems, or pain. The symptoms can be very different – more than 200 symptoms are known that can occur in connection with a post-COVID disease. People need competent contact persons who accompany them, take their complaints seriously and show the optimal therapeutic possibilities.

Can you describe the patients' dissatisfaction more precisely? – Patients often believe they are not comprehensively advised or supported by family doctors. A frequently reported problem is the feeling that complaints such as chronic exhaustion, cognitive limitations, pain or breathing problems are not taken seriously enough or are interpreted incorrectly. Many patients reported that their symptoms were interpreted as symptoms of a mental disorder, which led to considerable dissatisfaction and unfortunately also wrong treatment recommendations.

And which treatments help? – For chronic exhaustion with exercise intolerance (post-exertional malaise), a foresighted and gentle handling of the reduced energy reserves helps – activity management, also called pacing. By observing the individual exertion limit, symptoms and disease course can be improved. The attempt to improve exhaustion through ever more activation, on the other hand, leads in most cases to a worsening of symptoms and increases the risk of chronification.

What is your conclusion and where do you see room for improvement? – There is room for improvement: post-COVID syndrome must be recognised and diagnosed as such, in order to be able to choose the right treatment method. Patients risk not being adequately cared for through hasty diagnosis, so that symptoms intensify or even a chronic disease follows.

And how will the research continue? – In the next step, the view should now be directed at the treating doctors: where do they see difficulties from their perspective, where do they see need for change to optimally support their patients? This data is to be presented in the coming year – with the goal of improving the care of post-COVID patients permanently. The results so far make clear how important it is to understand post-COVID comprehensively and develop patient-oriented approaches. We warmly thank Frau Mößle for this interview!