Musculoskeletal and Related Post-COVID Symptoms and their Association with Pre-existing Chronic Conditions

A notable portion of individuals who were infected with COVID-19 continue to experience long COVID. Some of the most common long COVID symptoms are fatigue and other musculoskeletal (MSK) post-COVID symptoms like myalgia and arthralgia. This thesis aims to explore the links between long COVID risk factors – especially pre-existing chronic conditions – and MSK post-COVID symptoms. Literature assessing how COVID-19 comorbidities associate with MSK post-COVID symptoms is scant. An analysis of longitudinal survey data was conducted to assess how key pre-existing chronic conditions – namely hypertension, previous heart attack, diabetes, and chronic lung disease – as well as multimorbidity may be associated with MSK post-COVID symptoms. We stratified by arthritis given its similarity in symptomatology with MSK post-COVID symptoms and our results showed that hypertension and multimorbidity are associated with increased odds of MSK post-COVID symptoms. Our findings may inform future practices on the identification of MSK post-COVID symptoms and potentially their management.