Ejalonibu, Hammed, Amah, Adelaide, Aburub, Alaa et al. · Journal of patient-reported outcomes · 2024 · DOI
This study reviewed existing questionnaires and measurement tools that patients can use to report their Long COVID symptoms and how the illness affects their daily life. The researchers found that a combination of specific, validated questionnaires—particularly the Post-COVID Functional Status Scale paired with tools measuring fatigue, thinking problems, mood, headaches, sleep, and post-exertional malaise—work best for capturing the full range of Long COVID effects.
Standardized measurement tools are essential for consistently tracking Long COVID symptoms, comparing outcomes across patients and studies, and enabling healthcare providers to deliver effective, patient-centered care. For ME/CFS patients—many of whom overlap with Long COVID populations—validated outcome measures strengthen research rigor and clinical decision-making, bridging the gap between subjective symptom experience and objective clinical assessment.
This review does not validate new instruments or prove that the recommended combination of tools is superior to other approaches in clinical practice. It identifies tools based on existing literature rather than conducting original prospective studies, and therefore does not establish which instrument combinations work best for predicting treatment response or long-term outcomes.
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
Ejalonibu, Hammed, Amah, Adelaide, Aburub, Alaa, Kumar, Pawan, Frederick, D E, & Groot, Gary (2024). A review of Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) for characterizing Long COVID (LC)-merits, gaps, and recommendations.. Journal of patient-reported outcomes. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41687-024-00773-1
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-ejalonibu-2024-review-patient,
author = {Ejalonibu, Hammed and Amah, Adelaide and Aburub, Alaa and Kumar, Pawan and Frederick, D E and Groot, Gary},
title = {A review of Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) for characterizing Long COVID (LC)-merits, gaps, and recommendations.},
journal = {Journal of patient-reported outcomes},
year = {2024},
doi = {10.1186/s41687-024-00773-1},
note = {PubMed: 39186150},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/ejalonibu-2024-review-patient},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-26. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/ejalonibu-2024-review-patient
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