The Effects of Messaging on Expectations and Understanding of Long COVID: An Online Randomised Trial

Objectives

We examined whether providing different types of information about Long COVID would affect expectations about the illness.

Design

A 2 (Illness description: Long COVID vs ongoing COVID-19 recovery) x 2 (Illness uncertainty: uncertainty emphasised vs uncertainty not emphasised) x 2 (Efficacy of support: enhanced support vs basic support) between-subjects randomised online experimental study.

Setting

The online platform Prolific, collected in October 2021.

Participants

A representative sample of 1110 members of the public in the UK.

Interventions

Participants were presented with a scenario describing a positive COVID-19 test result and then presented with one of eight scenarios describing a Long COVID diagnosis.

Primary and Secondary Outcome Measures

Various outcome measures relating to illness expectations were captured including: symptom severity, symptom duration, quality of life, personal control, treatment control and illness coherence.

Results

We ran a series of 2 × 2 × 2 ANOVAs on the outcome variables. We found a main effect of illness description: individuals reported longer symptom duration and less illness coherence when the illness was described as Long COVID (compared to ongoing COVID-19 recovery). There was a main effect of illness uncertainty: when uncertainty was emphasised, participants reported longer expected symptom duration, less treatment control, and less illness coherence than when uncertainty was not emphasised. There was also a main effect of efficacy of support: participants reported higher personal control and higher treatment control when support was enhanced (compared to basic support). We also found an interaction between illness description and efficacy of support: when support was enhanced, participants reported less illness coherence for Long COVID (compared to ongoing COVID-19 recovery).

Conclusions

Communications around Long COVID should not emphasise symptom uncertainty and should provide people with information on how they can facilitate their recovery and where they can access additional support. The findings also suggest that use of the term ongoing COVID-19 recovery, where possible, may reduce negative expectations associated with the illness.

Strengths and Limitations of this study

• This is one of the first experimental designed studies to assess the impact of different types of communication about Long COVID.

• Participants were a UK representative sample, although these findings are not necessarily applicable to all population groups (i.e., ethnic minorities).

• This study is one of the first applications of the IPQ-R in a hypothetical, online experiment, with high reliability.

• This was an online experiment, with hypothetical scenarios and participants with no experience of COVID-19 or Long COVID, therefore outcomes may be different in a real-world context.