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LONDON: Many COVID-19 survivors are likely to be at increased risk of developing mental illness, psychiatrists said on Monday (Nov 9), after a large study found that 20 percent of those infected with the coronavirus are diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder within 90 days.
Anxiety, depression and insomnia were more common among recovered COVID-19 patients in the study who developed mental health problems, and the researchers also found significantly higher risks for dementia, a brain-impairing condition.
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“People have been concerned that COVID-19 survivors are at increased risk for mental health problems, and our findings … show that this is likely,” said Paul Harrison, a professor of psychiatry at Oxford University of Britain.
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 need to be ready to provide care, especially since our results are likely to be underestimated (of the number of psychiatric patients),” he added.
The study, published in The Lancet Psychiatry, analyzed the electronic medical records of 69 million people in the United States, including more than 62,000 cases of COVID-19.
In the three months after testing positive for COVID-19, one in five survivors was recorded as having a first-time diagnosis of anxiety, depression, or insomnia. This was about twice as likely as for other groups of patients in the same period, the researchers said.
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The study also found that people with a pre-existing mental illness were 65 percent more likely to be diagnosed with COVID-19 than those without it.
Mental health specialists who were not directly involved in the study said their findings add to growing evidence that COVID-19 can affect the brain and mind, increasing the risk of a variety 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, a Regius Professor of Psychiatry at King’s College London, said the finding that people with mental health disorders are also at increased risk of contracting COVID-19 echoed similar findings in previous infectious disease outbreaks.
“COVID-19 affects the central nervous system and, therefore, could directly increase subsequent disorders. But this research confirms that that is not the whole story and that this risk is increased by previous health problems,” he said.
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