Hepatitis C Virus Infection Increases Fatigue in Health Care Workers

Fatigue is a common state associated with a weakening or depletion of one's physical and mental resources, that leads to the inability to continue the individual functioning at a normal level of activity. Frequently, fatigue represents a response to infections, inflammation and autoimmune diseases. The scope of this study was to evaluate the fatigue in healthcare workers with and without hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. Mental, physical and severity fatigue were evaluated through Krupp, Wessely and Powell fatigue scale. Anti-HCV antibodies, HCV RNA and HCV genotypes were also measured. Physical, mental and severity fatigue were higher in healthcare workers with HCV infection than the healthcare workers without infection (p < 0.01). Our data showed a direct link between fatigue and HCV infection in healthcare workers. Further studies are needed to evaluate HCV antiviral treatments on fatigue severity and on quality of life in healthcare workers.