STUDY: “One in three survivors of a severe form of Covid is diagnosed with a mental illness” – 07.04.2021

One in three survivors of a severe form of Covid-19 developed a psychiatric or neurological condition after six months, according to the results of the largest study of its kind to date, informs The Guardian, quoted by news.ro.

Observational research used the electronic medical records of 236,379 patients, most of them in the United States, and concluded that 34% of them had neurological and mental health conditions. The most common is anxiety, with 17% of patients.

Experts have warned that health systems need resources to care for patients affected, which could be “considerable” given the scale of the pandemic. They anticipate that the impact will be felt at the level of health services for many years.

Neurological diagnoses such as dementia and stroke were rare, but not uncommon in those who were severely ill with Covid-19. Of those who were admitted to intensive care, 7% suffered a stroke and about 2% were diagnosed with dementia.

The study, published in the Lancet Psychiatry, found that these diagnoses were more common in Covid-19 patients than in those who had the flu and respiratory tract infections during the same period.

After taking into account characteristics such as age, sex, ethnicity and pre-existing conditions, the risk of neurological diagnosis and mental disorders is 44% higher after Covid-19 than after influenza.

A previous study by the same research team shows that people are more prone to mood disorders and anxiety in the first three months after SARS-CoV-2 infection.

According to the new study, the most common diagnoses after Covid-19 were anxiety (17% of patients), mood disorders (14%), substance abuse disorders (7%) and insomnia (5%). The incidence of neurological effects was lower, including 0.6% – cerebral hemorrhage and 0.7% – dementia.

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