Thread by @Dr2NisreenAlwan

This study asked the question:"Are the belief in having had COVID-19 infection and actually having had the infection as verified by SARS-CoV-2 serology testing associated with persistent physical symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic?"
Stop right there!1/5
jamanetwork.com/journals/jamai…

Serology is not a sensitive way to assess the presence or absence of past infection. There's plenty of evidence that antibodies wane & may be undetectable in those infected. Also-wait for it- having Long Covid is in itself associated with weaker antibody response to infection.2/5

See this study: link.springer.com/article/10.100…. This means it's not sound to use antibodies to classify the exposure (covid) in relation to the occurence of the outcome (#LongCovid), because the classifier itself may be causing the outcome. 3/5

I'd also like to critique the damaging framing here since we're talking about 'belief'. Why is a low accuracy lab test in relation to what it's trying to assess believed more than peoples' testimonties about their own lived experience?
And I want to ask a wider question: 4/5

What the responsibility -if any- do medical journals take in wording and framing illnesses that we still lack substantial knowledge on as 'beliefs' in patients' heads, and how this affects patients' lives, the care they receive & the stigma they're exposed to and internalise? 5/5

Asking again without the typo because this is an important question:
What responsibility do medical journals take in framing illnesses that we still lack good knowledge on as 'beliefs' & how this affects patients' lives, their care & the stigma they're exposed to & internalise?

Also very strangely, although the authors state that participants were asked if they had a positive PCR/antigen test to detect viral infection, this doesn't feature in their analysis of serology vs 'belief'!