Researchers at Sahlgrenska Academy have examined 200,000 visits by Swedish women to primary care in the year before the pandemic. Common to these visits were symptoms such as dizziness, fatigue and pain, and the care providers were unable to make a specific diagnosis.
The study showed a correlation - the more healthcare visits a woman had before the pandemic, the greater the likelihood of later being diagnosed with post-COVID syndrome or fatigue syndrome. For women who had more than eight visits, the likelihood was five times greater.
Real symptoms
Agnes af Geijerstam, a physician at the Sahlgrenska Academy, says that her experience is that many women may feel that their symptoms are not taken seriously.
"It's not about people going to the health center unnecessarily, but about people who have real physical symptoms. It could be that they have an underlying sensitivity," she says.
At the same time, she highlights the difficulties in diagnosing long-term consequences of viral infections, such as post-COVID. The symptoms are often so non-specific that, on examination, they could indicate many different conditions.
For broad criteria
According to Agnes af Geijerstam, today's diagnostic criteria are too broad. They include too many patients who are unrelated to post-COVID.
In many of these cases, they involve people who still have symptoms after primary care has exhausted all its methods. The question then is what resources primary care should allocate to address the problem.
The study challenges the image of post-COVID as solely a direct consequence of COVID-19. Agnes af Geijerstam notes that a background of ill health can play a role in who receives the diagnosis and that the pandemic, for many women, could be seen as a triggering factor.
The study was published in the scientific journal Journal of Primary Health Care.
