COVID-19 is associated with an increased risk of mental health disorders, including anxiety, depression, drug use, and sleep disorders. This risk can affect people with COVID-19 for up to a year after they are infected with the virus.
This is the result of a study in the US. The findings, published in The British Medical Journal, show that addressing mental health disorders among COVID-19 survivors should be a priority.
More than 403 million people worldwide have been infected with the virus since the pandemic began. Our calculations do not take into account the countless number of people, possibly millions, who suffer in silence due to negative mental health stigma or lack of resources or support," said Al-Aly, a clinical epidemiologist at the University of Washington.
Researchers used data from the US Department of Veterans Affairs national health care database to estimate the risk of mental health outcomes in people who survived at least 30 days after a positive PCR test result between March 2020 and January 2021.
They compared the mental health outcomes in the COVID-19 data set with two other groups of people who were not infected with the virus. The two groups consisted of: a control group of more than 5.6 million patients who did not have COVID-19 during the same time period, and a control group of more than 5.8 million patients from March 2018 to January 2019, well before the pandemic. started.
The majority of study participants were older white men. However, due to its large size, the study involved more than 1.3 million women, more than 2.1 million black participants, and a large number of people of all ages.
The COVID-19 group was further divided into those who were treated or not hospitalized during the acute infection phase. Other information was also collected regarding potentially influential factors including age, race, gender, lifestyle, and medical history.
The researchers then followed all three groups for one year to estimate the risk of predetermined mental health outcomes, including anxiety, depression and stress disorders, substance use disorders, neurocognitive impairment, and sleep disturbances.
Compared with a control group who were not infected, people with COVID-19 showed a 60% higher risk of being diagnosed or receiving a mental health prescription within one year.
When the researchers examined mental health disorders separately, they found that COVID-19 was associated with an increase of 24 per 1,000 people with a sleep disorder in one year, 15 per 1,000 with a depressive disorder, 11 per 1,000 with a neurocognitive impairment, and 4 per 1,000 with a sleep disorder. mentally.
Similar results were found when the COVID-19 group was compared with the historical control group. The risk is highest for people who are hospitalized during the early phase of COVID-19.
People with COVID-19 also showed a higher risk of mental health disorders than those with seasonal influenza, the researchers said.
Those who were hospitalized for COVID-19 showed an increased risk of mental health disorders compared to those who were hospitalized for other reasons.
The researchers cautioned that this was an observational study, so could not establish a cause. They also note that some misclassification bias may occur.
The study involved mostly older white men, so the results may not apply to other groups, they added. Research shows that people who survive the acute phase of COVID-19 are at increased risk of a range of mental health disorders, and that treating mental health disorders among survivors of the disease should be a priority.