Evidence of quality of life for hospitalised patients with COVID-19: a scoping review

Background Information on the quality of life of people hospitalised with COVID-19 is important, both in assessing the burden of disease and the cost-effectiveness of treatments. However, there were potential barriers to collecting such evidence.

Objective To review the existing evidence on quality of life for people hospitalised with COVID-19, with a focus on the amount of evidence available and methods used.

Design A scoping review with systematic searches.

Results A total of 35 papers were selected for data extraction. The most common study type was economic evaluation (N = 13), followed by cross-sectional (N = 10). All economic evaluations used published utility values for other conditions to represent COVID-19 inpatients’ quality of life. The most popular quality-of-life survey measure was the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (N = 8). There were 12 studies that used a mental health-related survey and 12 that used a sleep-related survey. Five studies used EQ-5D, but only one collected responses from people in the acute phase of COVID-19. Studies reported a negative impact on quality of life for people hospitalised with COVID-19, although many studies did not include a formal comparison group.

Limitations Although it used systematic searches, this was not a full systematic review.

Conclusion Quality-of-life data were collected from people hospitalised with COVID-19 from relatively early in the pandemic. However, there was a lack of consensus as to what survey measures to use, and few studies used generic health measures. Economic evaluations for COVID-19 treatments did not use utilities collected from people with COVID-19. In future health crises, researchers should be vigilant for opportunities to collect quality-of-life data from hospitalised patients but should try to co-ordinate as well as ensuring generic health measures are used more.

Funding This article presents independent research funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Health Technology Assessment programme as award number NIHR132254.