AMA Manual of Style: New Guidance on Long COVID vs Post–COVID-19 Condition
Clear and precise language is an essential tool in the editor’s toolbox. In scientific communication, this is taken to a whole new level. It is important, if not crucial, to recognize the context and audience of your article. This is why a new change was made to the AMA Manual of Style, which I have outlined for you below.
Last November, an update was made to Chapter 11 of the AMA Manual of Style that allowed the use of the term long COVID in nonscientific contexts. It also added the more formal term post–COVID-19 condition (PCC) to the glossary of correct and preferred usage of common words and phrases.
In summary, here are 5 things to remember from the new guidance:
Use post–COVID-19 condition (PCC) when submitting research articles.
Alternate terms include post–COVID syndrome and postacute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection (PASC).
You may use the colloquial term long COVID in narratives or patient-focused content.
The word long is lowercased.
Avoid jargon with terms such as long haulers.
One example of an article I recently edited using the PCC terminology was this one in JAMA Internal Medicine. I edited out the use of long COVID in this article, since it is a research article in scientific context rather than a patient page or personal narrative about having long COVID.
In this News from the JAMA Network article, both terms are mentioned; however, the dominant term used is long COVID. This is justified because the audience of a news article is different than the audience of a research article. News articles are often written for the general public as well as for public media pick-up.
It is certainly not uncommon for authors to submit manuscripts with the use of long COVID terminology that must be edited to AMA Style. So don’t feel bad if you did it too! However, you can stay ahead of the game if you submit your next manuscript using PCC language, rather than long COVID. Your editor will appreciate you!
Clear and precise language with recognition of context and audience is crucial in medical and scientific writing. This is no different in the case of long COVID vs PCC.