Nearly One in Five COVID-19 Patients Later Diagnosed with Mental Illness
c0lo writes:
Says Nearly one in five Covid patients later diagnosed with mental illness - study:
Nearly one in five people who have had Covid-19 are diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder such as anxiety, depression or insomnia within three months of testing positive for the virus, according to a study that suggests action is needed to mitigate the mental health toll of the pandemic.
The analysis - conducted by researchers from the University of Oxford and NIHR Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre - also found that people with a pre-existing mental health diagnosis were 65% more likely to be diagnosed with Covid-19 than those without, even accounting for known risk factors such as age, sex, race, and underlying physical conditions.
[...] The calculations were made on the basis of roughly 70m US health records, including more than 62,000 cases of Covid-19 that did not require a hospital stay or an emergency department visit. The incidence of any diagnosis of mental ill-health in the 14 to 90 days after a Covid-19 diagnosis was 18.1%, including 5.8% that were a first diagnosis.
[...] Paul Harrison, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Oxford, said more research was needed to establish whether a diagnosis of a psychiatric disorder could be directly linked to getting coronavirus. General factors that influence physical health were not captured in the records analysed, such as socio-economic background, smoking, or use of drugs. There was also potential that the general stressful environment of the pandemic is playing a role, he noted.
Research suggests that people from poorer socio-economic backgrounds are more likely to suffer mental ill-health. Poverty also increases exposure to coronavirus, owing to factors like crowded housing and unsafe working conditions.
"Equally, it's not at all implausible that Covid-19 might have some direct effect on your brain and your mental health. But I think that, again, remains to be positively demonstrated," said Harrison.
A particularly concerning finding was the doubling of the diagnosis of dementia - which is typically irreversible - three months after testing positive for Covid-19, versus the other health conditions.
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