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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Public Mental Health
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1460097
This article is part of the Research Topic Psychosocial Factors, Mental Comorbidities and Related Biomarkers Interacting with the Onset and Course of Somatic Diseases View all 7 articles
Course of neuropsychological health in post-COVID patients differs 6 and 12 months after inpatient rehabilitation
Provisionally accepted
Katrin Müller 1* Iris Poppele 1 Marcel Ottiger 1 Rainer-Christian Weber 2 Michael Dr. Stegbauer 2 Torsten Schlesinger 1- 1 Institute of Human Movement Science and Health, Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences, Chemnitz University of Technology, Chemnitz, Germany
- 2 BG Hospital for Occupational Disease Bad Reichenhall, Bad Reichenhall, Germany
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Background: Rehabilitation is an effective and feasible approach for post-COVID patients to improve mental health and cognitive complaints. However, knowledge regarding the long-term impact of rehabilitation on neuropsychological health of these patients is lacking.Objective: This study aims to investigate psychological health, fatigue, and cognitive function 6 and 12 months after inpatient post-COVID rehabilitation of patients, who acquired COVID-19 in the workplace. In addition, group differences in these outcome parameters according to sex, age, acute COVID status, socioeconomic status, profession, and pre-existing diseases will be detected.Methods: This longitudinal observational study examined the changes in mental and cognitive health of 127 patients with COVID-19 as an occupational disease or work accident. Symptoms of depression and anxiety, fatigue severity, somatic symptom severity, trauma-related symptoms, and cognitive functioning were assessed at the beginning as well as six and 12 months after rehabilitation. Group differences concerning sex, age, acute COVID status, socioeconomic status, occupational status, and existing diseases prior to COVID-19 were also analyzed.The results showed that the improvements direct after rehabilitation in mental health and fatigue severity could not be maintained six and 12 months after rehabilitation discharge. Contrary, patients' cognitive function maintained stable during follow-up. Significant group differences were observed regarding age, sex, acute COVID status, socioeconomic status, occupational status, and preexisting diseases.This study highlights the importance of the aftercare process and the implementation of adequate and individualized therapeutic interventions such as psychological support and strengthen self-management skills.The study is registered in the German Clinical Trials Register with the identifier DRKS00022928.
Keywords: Work-related COVID-19, post-COVID, Mental Health, Depression, cognitive health, Rehabilitation, Long-term outcomes
Received: 05 Jul 2024; Accepted: 12 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Müller, Poppele, Ottiger, Weber, Dr. Stegbauer and Schlesinger. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Katrin Müller, Institute of Human Movement Science and Health, Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences, Chemnitz University of Technology, Chemnitz, Germany
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.