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COVID fatigue: cognitive behavioural therapy could help people manage persistent symptoms – new research
By Rhiannon Phillips, Cardiff Metropolitan University
While COVID is no longer regarded as a global health emergency, it remains a serious disease. Notably, even mild cases can result in persistent symptoms known as long COVID, which can have wide-reaching effects on physical health, mental health and quality of life.
Fatigue is a common symptom of both COVID and long COVID – around eight in ten adults report experiencing it during a COVID infection. And while many people find their fatigue improves within a few weeks, this is not the case for everyone. Estimates suggest that between one in ten and one in three people still have fatigue six months post-COVID. They may or may not have received a formal diagnosis of long COVID.
A recent study has suggested that cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), a widely used form of “talking therapy”, could help people experiencing persistent fatigue after COVID. So what can we make of this?
CBT is commonly used to treat mental health issues such as anxiety and depression, but it can also be used for fatigue. For example, CBT has been used as a treatment for people with chronic fatigue syndrome, which has features that overlap with post-COVID fatigue.
CBT for persistent fatigue is based on the idea that by changing what we think, feel and do about our symptoms, we can improve functioning and quality of life.
A review of the evidence on CBT for fatigue published in 2008 indicated that this approach was effective in reducing symptoms of fatigue. However, these conclusions have since been challenged due to inconsistent findings and concerns about the quality of evidence.
A more recent review from 2019 concluded that the benefits of CBT for chronic fatigue syndrome are typically modest and short-lived. And around one in five patients who have received CBT for chronic fatigue report worsening health following therapy.
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