COVID-19, Fatigue
Conditions
Keywords
Covid-19, fatigue, outpatient clinic, integrative naturopathy, integrative medicine
Brief summary
The study aims to identify whether a multimodal integrative naturopathy outpatient clinical concept can improve the symptoms of patients suffering from post-COVID-Syndrome. Main outcome is fatigue. The outpatient clinical programme consists of 11 weeks wherein patients visit the clinic one day per week. The pillars of classical naturopathy are combined with extended naturopathy and complementary procedures. Previous naturopathical studies on patients with chronic fatigue syndrome could find numerous indications that different types of naturopathy can help patients with fatigue.
Interventions
BEHAVIORALoutpatient clinic with multimodal integrative medicine and naturopathy for post-COVID-19 patients
Patients receive multimodal integrative medicine and naturopathy applications with focus on mind-body-medicine and whole body hyperthermia to reduce fatigue and improve quality of life.
OTHERwaiting group
Patients receive no intervention
Sponsors
Universität Duisburg-Essen
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
NONE
Intervention model description
Parallel to the treatment group that visits the outpatient clinic on one day of the week for 11 weeks, the waiting group only fills in a diary and the questionnaires at two timepoints. Diary and questionnaires are the same for both groups.
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to 75 Years
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
* 18 to 75 years of age * diagnosed with post covid syndrome * fatigue with or without myalgia * signed declaration of consent
Exclusion criteria
* contraindications for whole body infrared hyperthermia (severe cardiovascular diseases, tumour diseases, acute infections, pregnant and breastfeeding women) * Acute and or feverish microbially infections * Pleuritic chest pain * Relevant shortness of breath * Zn Critical illness or intensive medical care because of COVID 19 * Patients with severe somatic, cardiovascular pneumological, rheumatic, endocrine or neurological comorbidities. Especially neurological disorders accompanied by cognitive impairment, severe liver or kidney disorders. * Patients permanently treated with opioids, cannabis, immunosuppressive agents (e.g. corticoids, immunsuppressives) or alpha/beta-a(nta)gonists * Patients with pain as a consequence of a severe psychiatric disease (bipolar disorder, psychosis, personality disorder, severe depression, substance abuse) as well as severe systematic disorders or neurological disorders * Participation in other clinical studies
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Fatigue - Change from week 0 to week 11 | before start of intervention (week 0) and afterwards (week 11) | measured with MFI-20 questionnaire and Chalder fatigue scale MFI-20: 20-item self-report instrument designed to measure fatigue. It covers the following dimensions: General Fatigue, Physical Fatigue, Mental Fatigue, Reduced Motivation and Reduced Activity. Higher total scores correspond with more acute levels of fatigue. Chalder fatigue scale: a questionnaire to measure the severity of tiredness in fatiguing illnesses. The 11-item chalder fatigue scale is often divided into two components: one that measures physical fatigue (questions 1-7) and one that measures mental fatigue (questions 8-11). |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Quality of life 1 | before start of intervention (week 0) and afterwards (week 11) | SF-12: Short Form of the Health Survey Questionnaire is a 12-item, patient-reported survey of patient health. It is a reduced size version of the SF-36, and is widely used. |
| Hospital Anxiety and Depression | before start of intervention (week 0) and afterwards (week 11) | HADS: Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, 14 items (7 each for depressive symptoms or symptoms of anxiety). The two summated scores of the summated scales HADS-A and HADS-D range between 0 and 21. High scores indicate depressivness and anxiety. |
| Perceived Stress | before start of intervention (week 0) and afterwards (week 11) | PSS-10: Perceived Stress Scale, Rating on a five-step scale from 1 (= never) to 5 (=very often), high stress is assumed from a total score of 20 points |
| Resilience | before start of intervention (week 0) and afterwards (week 11) | BRS: Brief Resilience Scale Questionnaire A 6-item questionnaire to assess the perceived ability to bounce back or recover from stress. The possible score range on the BRS is from 1 (low resilience) to 5 (high resilience). |
| Quality of life 2 | before start of intervention (week 0) and afterwards (week 11) | EQ-5D: Quality of life EQ-5D is an instrument which evaluates the generic quality of life. The EQ-5D descriptive system is a preference-based HRQL measure with one question for each of the five dimensions that include mobility, self-care, usual activities, pain/discomfort, and anxiety/depression. |
| Sleep Quality | before start of intervention (week 0) and afterwards (week 11) | PSQI: Der Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index It contains seven subscales: subjective sleep quality, sleep latency, sleep duration, habitual sleep efficiency, sleep disturbances, use of sleeping medication, and daytime dysfunction. All items refer to the last four weeks and are assessed either in four frequency levels or in an open-end format. A total sum score from 0 - 21 can be derived from the subscales with higher scores indicating higher sleep disturbance. |
| perceived Pain | before start of intervention (week 0) and afterwards (week 11) | BPI: Brief Pain Inventory, An inventory including 15 Items about the intensity of pain (4 items, numeric rating scales from 1 (no pain) to 10 (worst pain imaginable), pain impairment (7 items with NRS from 1-10) and the efficacy of medications/treatments. Higher scores indicate higher average pain/pain impairment. |
Countries
Germany
Outcome results
None listed