A news study shows that Covid patients suffer from depression and anxiety long after their infection. ” Disease severity and risk of mental morbidities in patients recovering from Covid-19 is the title of a cross-sectional study.
Research carried out last week showed that Covid can deteriorate gray matter and brain tissue, including parts of the brain including memory and emotions. Now a new study is the first of its kind to look far and wide at the long-term mental health impact of patients who have been infected for at least a week with Covid. The study adds to long-term Covid data – research that is still in its infancy.
New research shows that many patients suffer from depression and anxiety, 16 months after their Covid infection.
Researchers at the University of Iceland looked at health data and sent out surveys to nearly 250,000 people in six countries. They found that most mental health symptoms in people with Covid disappeared within two months of diagnosis.
→ Read also: Covid-19: The pandemic is far from over (WHO)
« We see similar patterns across countries, so it’s not just these results said Ingibjörg Magnúsdóttir, a researcher at the University of Iceland. “ We can say that they are not only due to the strict strategies of a particular country, because we see this stuff everywhere. »
Covid patients who were bedridden for seven days or more were more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety that did not go away.
« There is almost no change between zero and 16 months”, declared Magnúsdóttir. « Those who are bedridden for seven days are longer. They are just significantly higher, both depressive and anxiety symptoms. »
About the results, the study shows that compared to people without a diagnosis of Covid-19, patients recovering from Covid-19 had an increased risk of depression (22.1% vs. 16.2%; adjusted relative risk (aRR ) 1.48, 95% CI 1.20 to 1.82) and PTSD (19.5% versus 15.6%; aRR 1.38, 95% CI 1.09 to 1.75) but not anxiety (13.1% versus 11.3%; arr 1.24, 95% CI 0.93 to 1.64).
High relative risks were limited to patients recovering from COVID-19 who were 40 or older and were particularly high among those with a university education. Among patients recovering from COVID-19, symptoms of depression were particularly common among those in the highest tertile, compared to the lowest tertile of flu-like symptom burden (47.1% vs. 8%; aRR 6.42, 95% CI 2.77 to 14.87), among patients bedridden for 7 or more days compared to those never bedridden (33.3% versus 10.9%; aRR 3.
The researchers tell Newsy they will follow up with study participants in May.