Building and testing a user-centred, Accessible Long COVID fatigue rehabilitation smartPHone App (ALPHA)

Building and testing a user-centred, Accessible Long COVID fatigue rehabilitation smartPHone App (ALPHA)

The term ‘long COVID’ is commonly used to describe the constellation of symptoms which continue or develop 28 days or more following COVID-19 infection. The development of long COVID seems to be independent of severity of the initial infection, meaning people may have had relatively mild symptoms during their initial infection with the virus. Fatigue is the most common persistent symptom in individuals with long COVID, followed by persistent pain – especially headaches and myalgia. Insomnia, sleep disturbances and dysregulation of the autonomic nervous system (dysautonomia) are additional symptoms commonly experienced by people with this emerging condition. However, as of 2022, a lot is still not known about long COVID symptoms and how to address these.

In this project, we are repurposing a mobile application the team have developed as part of a prior project that was targeted at people with Sjogren’s syndrome. While the application was targeted at a specific population, much of the content within the app has been developed from sources targeting a range of conditions. The application will be adapted and tailored towards other long-term conditions where fatigue, sleep and chronic pain are problematic, including long COVID. The app will be co-produced with people with long COVID to ensure that it meets their needs and requirements. At the end of this project, we will have an app which is ready to be launched on the app stores.