Mental Morbidities and Chronic Fatigue in Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Survivors
2009/12/14 by Marco Ho-Bun Lam, M. Lam · 766 citations
Medicine · Psychology · #COVID-19 and Mental Health #Chronic fatigue #Chronic fatigue syndrome #Comorbidity #Confidence interval #Depression (economics) #Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Research #Internal medicine #Logistic regression #Long-Term Effects of COVID-19 #Medicine #Mental health #Odds ratio #Physical therapy #Psychiatry
paper · doi:10.1001/archinternmed.2009.384
published in Archives of Internal Medicine 169(22), 2142 (American Medical Association)
openalex publication_date 2009/12/14 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Short-term follow-up studies of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) survivors suggested that their physical conditions continuously improved in the first year but that their mental health did not. We investigated long-term psychiatric morbidities and chronic fatigue among SARS survivors. METHODS: All SARS survivors from the hospitals of a local region in Hong Kong were assessed by a constellation of psychometric questionnaires and a semistructured clinical interview for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (Fourth Edition) to determine the presence of psychiatric disorders and chronic fatigue problems. RESULTS: Of 369 SARS survivors, 233 (63.1%) participated in the study (mean period of time after SARS, 41.3 months). Over 40% of the respondents had active psychiatric illnesses, 40.3% reported a chronic fatigue problem, and 27.1% met the modified 1994 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention criteria for chronic fatigue syndrome. Logistic regression analysis suggested that being a health care worker at the time of SARS infection (odds ratio [OR], 3.24; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.12- 9.39; P = .03), being unemployed at follow-up (OR, 4.71; 95% CI, 1.50-14.78; P = .008), having a perception of social stigmatization (OR, 3.03; 95% CI, 1.20-7.60; P = .02), and having applied to the SARS survivors' fund (OR, 2.92; 95% CI, 1.18-7.22; P = .02) were associated with an increased risk of psychiatric morbidities at follow-up, whereas application to the SARS survivors' fund (OR, 2.64; 95% CI, 1.07-6.51; P = .04) was associated with increased risk of chronic fatigue problems. CONCLUSIONS: Psychiatric morbidities and chronic fatigue persisted and continued to be clinically significant among the survivors at the 4-year follow-up. Optimization of the treatment of mental health morbidities by a multidisciplinary approach with a view for long-term rehabilitation, especially targeting psychiatric and fatigue problems and functional and occupational rehabilitation, would be needed.
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