A new study published in the medical journal The Lancet Psychiatry COVID-19 May be associated with an array of mental health effects in patients.
The study, conducted by researchers at Oxford University, found that with a growing number of diagnoses for a number of mental conditions and disorders including anxiety, insomnia and dementia, according to research conducted by researchers at Oxford University.
The researchers said the mental health consequences of having COVID-19 have not yet been accurately measured – but it has been widely predicted.
“We were primarily interested in the question of whether people diagnosed with Covid-19 were at higher risk of developing a mental health disorder,” Paul Paul Harrison, a professor at the University of Oxford who worked on the study, told CBS News.
Harrison said the researchers tried to answer this question by looking at the rate of psychiatric diagnoses in patients within three months of being diagnosed with Covid-19.
The group used the Trinetics Analytics Network, which collects data from electronic medical records from 54 health care institutions in the U.S., including data from this .8..8 million patients – of whom 62,354 were diagnosed with Covid-19 during January 20 and August 1. Was. Some of these patients were diagnosed with a mental disorder.
For comparison, the researchers also measured the rate of diagnosis of mental disorder in patients experiencing six other health events, such as the flu, respiratory tract infections, or bone fractures.
“It’s important to try and get it done May be due to covid “Or what could be due to the environment in which we live,” Harris explained.
The researchers found diagnoses in COVID-19 patients with dementia, insomnia, anxiety and mood disorders as well as six other health conditions that served as the control group.
“In the 90 days following the diagnosis, about 18% or about 1 in 5 people with COVD had one or the other type of psychiatric diagnosis – which is the most anxiety disorder,” Harrison said.
He said as many as 6% of COVID-19 patients had never had a mental disorder, diagnosed within three months of becoming COVID-19. The most common, again, was anxiety.
Harrison said there are two possible causes of the mental disorder associated with Covid-19. “One possibility is that the virus may have a somewhat direct effect when the symptoms occur. Maybe that’s what the virus is doing in some people’s brains, or the way some people’s immune systems have reacted to fight the virus,” he said.
“There are some indications that it may be a biological explanation for some people.”
Another possible cause could be psychological reactions to people being diagnosed with the virus, Harris said.
“Psychological reactions People have to keep covid, worrying for the first time about their lives, worrying about the future – in a way, covid is acting as just a major stressful event, rather than a direct viral effect.” Said.
Compared to the other six illnesses and health events, COVID-19 was the first to be diagnosed with a mental disorder, the study said.
“It’s possible to guess that at the moment, you’re more stressed than when someone tells you that you’ve done the most wrong things with you.” It is very difficult to know whether this is the exact cause.
Harrison said there are still more questions left to answer after the Oxford study. He also said he was diagnosed with a mental disorder after being diagnosed with COVID-19.
“If you can consider almost every other cause of anxiety and depression, a significant proportion of people, with time and / or treatment, get better,” he said. “In my own clinical practice, among the Kovid survivors, I have definitely seen some people who are clearly getting better and some who are clearly not.”
“I doubt there will be a range of results and we will need a long-term study where we can really measure it over time,” he added.
Harris said the second part of the Oxford study is to ask: Are people who already have a psychiatric diagnosis more at risk of developing covid-19 than people without a psychiatric diagnosis?
“To my surprise, the answer is yes,” Harrison said. “People who had a psychiatric diagnosis in the year before they came with Covid … were about 65% more likely to be diagnosed with Covid than people without a psychiatric diagnosis.”
Harrison said he and his colleagues were upset by the discovery. “Is this just because people with mental health problems also have poor physical health problems?” He inquired.
To determine this, a group of researchers looked at control for physical health factors – and the effect was not eliminated. “So, there seems to be some connection between the psychiatric diagnosis and your risk of Covid-19,” Harris said.
“Like the first part of the study, there are really two explanations for it,” he continued. “One is that there is a connection between the factors that make you susceptible to mental illness and the factors that make you susceptible to COVID.” For example, he explained, inflammation can play a role in both conditions.
But other factors that are harder to measure, such as lifestyle or behavior, may play a role in both mental illness and diseases such as COVD-19. “It could explain why they are more sensitive to catching COVID.” “To take the simple possibility, it is likely that they live in a slightly more crowded situation and are therefore more likely to catch the virus.”
“The important thing is that it may or may not be a mental illness that puts you at risk for COVID, it may be one of the factors related to this.”
Another study, published in the journal The Lancet Psychiatry in June, looked at 153 patients who were hospitalized in severe cases of COVID-19 to see if they had any neurological or mental illness complications associated with the virus. The study found that 125 patients did.
More than 60% of patients had a stroke, most of which occurred in patients aged 60 or older.
According to a June study, about a third of patients experienced a “changeable mental state, such as symptoms such as inflammation of the brain, psychosis and dementia.” These include signs of confusion or a change in behavior.
Mental conditions were diagnosed in about a quarter of patients with altered mental states, of which the “vast majority” were found to be newly developed. However, researchers say it is possible that some were easily diagnosed before the patient developed the virus.
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