A Psychological Study of the Effect of Long COVID

Background: Long COVID is a condition defined by the continuation of symptoms of the initial COVID-19 infection and is thought to affect around 65 million people globally (Davis et al., 2023). The World Health Organisation (WHO) suggest more than 17 million people across Europe are living with long COVID (WHO, 2022). Aim: This thesis examined the psychological factors which mediate distress in people with long COVID. Method: This thesis explored two papers, a systematic review and an empirical study, to address this question. The systematic review examined the evidence for psychological mediators of distress in people with long COVID. The empirical study examined a cognitive behavioural model of the processes impacting psychological distress in a long COVID population using a cross-sectional, survey-based design. Results: The systematic review highlighted the gap in the literature for systematically exploring relevant psychological perspectives of the experience of distress in long COVID. To address this, the empirical study adopted and validated a model of the cognitive, behavioural, and psychosocial processes impacting psychological distress in a long COVID. Conclusion: This thesis identifies specific psychological mediators of distress in long COVID and highlights directions for future research to expand on this finding and inform clinical practice.