Variability in Long COVID Definitions and Validation of Published Prevalence Rates

What is the prevalence of long COVID in the Innovative Support for Patients With SARS-CoV-2 Infections Registry (INSPIRE) cohort based on definitions in published literature?In this prospective cohort study of 4575 INSPIRE participants, when replicating long COVID definitions used in the 5 published studies with the largest sample size of reviewed studies, the prevalence of long COVID among participants who were COVID-19 positive varied at 3 months from 32% to 42% and at 6 months from 15% to 22%.The findings suggest that long COVID prevalence estimates vary as a function of disparate definitions used.

Corresponding Author: Lauren E. Wisk, PhD, Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, 1100 Glendon Ave, Ste 850, Los Angeles, CA 90024 (lwisk@mednet.ucla.edu).

Link to the article in your story

We encourage you to link out to this article in your story using the link below. It includes an access token that will give free access to the article for your readers up to one year after publication. (The link will be live after the article publishes and embargo is lifted.)

Please see the article for additional information, including full author list, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

Need more information? Contact us.