Many COVID-19 survivors are likely to be at higher risk of developing mental illness, study finds.
Many COVID-19 survivors are at higher risk of developing mental illness, psychiatrists said Monday, after a large study found that 20% of people infected with the coronavirus are diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder within 90 days.
Anxiety, depression, and insomnia were most common among COVID-19 patients recovered in the study who developed mental health issues. Researchers at the British University of Oxford also found significantly higher risks of dementia, a brain condition.
“People are concerned that COVID-19 survivors are at higher risk for mental health problems, and our findings … show that it is likely,” said Paul Harrison, professor of psychiatry at Oxford.
Doctors and scientists around the world urgently need to investigate the causes and identify new treatments for mental illness after COVID-19, Harrison said.
“The (health) services must be ready to provide care, especially since our results are likely to be underestimated (by the number of psychiatric patients),” he added.
The study, published in The Lancet Psychiatry, analyzed the electronic health records of 69 million people in the United States, including more than 62,000 cases of COVID-19. The results will likely be the same for people with COVID-19 around the world, the researchers said.
Within three months of testing positive for COVID-19, 1 in 5 survivors have been recorded as having a first diagnosis of anxiety, depression or insomnia. This was about twice as likely as for other groups of patients during the same period, the researchers said.
The study also found that people with pre-existing mental illnesses were 65% more likely to be diagnosed with COVID-19 than those without.
Mental health specialists who are not directly involved in the study said its findings add to growing evidence that COVID-19 can affect the brain and mind, increasing the risk of a range of psychiatric illnesses. .
“This is likely due to a combination of the psychological stressors associated with this particular pandemic and the physical effects of the disease,” said Michael Bloomfield, consultant psychiatrist at University College London.
Simon Wessely, regius professor of psychiatry at King’s College London, said the finding that people with mental health disorders were also at a higher risk of contracting COVID-19 echoed similar findings during epidemics previous infectious diseases.
“COVID-19 affects the central nervous system, and therefore could directly increase subsequent disorders. But this research confirms that this is not the whole story, and that this risk is increased by previous poor health,” he said. -he declares.
Marjorie Wallace, chief executive of UK mental health charity SANE, said the study echoed her charity’s experience during the pandemic.
“Our helpline is supporting an increasing number of new callers who have mental health issues, as well as those who relapse because their fear and anxiety have become intolerable,” she said.
