Abrignani, Maurizio G, Maloberti, Alessandro, Temporelli, Pier Luigi et al. · Giornale italiano di cardiologia (2006) · 2022 · DOI
Long COVID is a condition where people experience ongoing symptoms weeks or months after recovering from COVID-19 infection. Symptoms can include fatigue, difficulty thinking clearly, shortness of breath, muscle pain, sleep problems, and reduced ability to do daily activities. This review looks at how common long COVID is, who is most likely to develop it, and what we currently know about the condition.
This review is relevant to ME/CFS research because long COVID and ME/CFS share several cardinal features, including post-exertional malaise, cognitive dysfunction, and fatigue that restrict functional capacity. Understanding long COVID's epidemiology and clinical presentation may provide insights into post-viral conditions more broadly and could inform case definitions and study design for both conditions.
As an editorial review rather than primary research, this study does not present original data or prove causal mechanisms underlying long COVID's symptoms. It does not establish the relationship between long COVID and ME/CFS, nor does it definitively establish prevalence rates, since it acknowledges that heterogeneous definitions prevent accurate epidemiological measurement.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
The first block is for the primary paper and is the citation you should use in research work. The atlas-snapshot line only applies if you are specifically referring to this atlas’s reading of the paper on the date shown.
Primary citation
Abrignani, Maurizio G, Maloberti, Alessandro, Temporelli, Pier Luigi, Binaghi, Giulio, Cesaro, Arturo, Ciccirillo, Francesco, et al. (2022). [Long COVID: nosographic aspects and clinical epidemiology].. Giornale italiano di cardiologia (2006). https://doi.org/10.1714/3860.38447
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-abrignani-2022-long-covid,
author = {Abrignani, Maurizio G and Maloberti, Alessandro and Temporelli, Pier Luigi and Binaghi, Giulio and Cesaro, Arturo and Ciccirillo, Francesco and Oliva, Fabrizio and Gabrielli, Domenico and Riccio, Carmine and Gulizia, Michele Massimo and Colivicchi, Furio},
title = {[Long COVID: nosographic aspects and clinical epidemiology].},
journal = {Giornale italiano di cardiologia (2006)},
year = {2022},
doi = {10.1714/3860.38447},
note = {PubMed: 36039714},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/abrignani-2022-long-covid},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-30. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/abrignani-2022-long-covid
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