A paper from the University of Gothenburg found that women who visited their health care providers frequently for recurring symptoms before the pandemic were more likely to be diagnosed with post-COVID-19 later on.
One of the paper’s sub-studies looked at just over 200,000 Swedish women. Researchers analyzed women who visited primary care in the years before the pandemic and compared them with women who later received post-COVID-19 diagnoses, such as long-term fatigue or post-viral fatigue syndrome.
The pre-pandemic medical visits analyzed were for symptoms such as fatigue, pain, dizziness, or other physical complaints where a clear diagnosis could not always be established at the time of the visit.
5 times more likely
The results showed that the more women sought such care before the pandemic, the more likely they were to receive one of the diagnoses later. Women who received eight or more such care sessions before the pandemic were more than five times more likely to later receive a diagnosis of post-COVID-19 or fatigue syndrome than women who did not receive such care.
Post-COVID-19, it is often explained as a direct result of an infectious disease. Our results indicate that there is a longer context of illness and care-seeking that may influence who receives a later diagnosis. ”
Agnes af Geierstam, Doctor, University of Gothenburg, PhD in Community Medicine and Public Health
At the same time, the study shows that about a fifth of women diagnosed with post-COVID-19 did not receive such care before the pandemic. This suggests that several different factors may contribute to disease development and diagnosis.
Overall picture of the new coronavirus
The study is based on the Swedish National Health Register and includes long-term follow-up with female health care workers. Agnes af Geijerstam’s papers, including this study, provide a broader picture of the various factors at different stages of life that can influence the risk of infection, severity and diagnosis during the COVID-19 pandemic.
– The pandemic has not affected everyone equally. Our research shows that both biological, psychological and social factors in life are related to how people are affected by COVID-19, says Agnes af Geijerstam.
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Written by Geijerstam, A. others (2026). Pre-pandemic care-seeking patterns and subsequent diagnoses of post-COVID-19 conditions, post-viral fatigue syndrome, and extreme fatigue disorder: a register-based cohort study of 208,050 Swedish women. Scandinavian Journal of Primary Health Care. DOI: 10.1080/02813432.2025.2611886. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02813432.2025.2611886
