University of Utah Study Shows Level Disappointment with Long COVID Clinics and Providers

University of Utah researchers conducted 20 semi structured interviews with primary care patients from a long COVID triage clinic during the date range of 2022 and 2023. They used a phenomenological framework,&nbsp;a research approach that studies how people&rsquo;s experience the world by exploring their lived experiences, focused on understanding and describing their specific lived experiences, along with perceptions via open-ended, flexible questioning. Employing use of qualitative content analysis, a method that identifies themes and patterns in the data, the group led by health researcher and doctoral student&nbsp;Elena Gardner&nbsp;and colleagues reveal results from 19 interviews (53% female, mean age = 54 years) show that long COVID patients expected their primary care practitioners (PCPs) to be knowledgeable about long COVID, attentive to their individual condition, and to engage in collaborative processes for treatment.&nbsp;They discovered a significant gap in expectations in some cases.
The study led to the following outcomes: