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A new study published in the medical journal The Lancet Psychiatry shows that COVID-19 may be linked to a range of mental health effects in patients.
According to the study, conducted by researchers at the University of Oxford, a diagnosis of COVID-19 was associated with an increased incidence of the diagnosis of several psychiatric conditions and disorders, including anxiety, insomnia and Madness.
Researchers said the mental health consequences of COVID-19 have not yet been accurately measured – but have been widely predicted.
“We were primarily interested in whether people diagnosed with COVID-19 were at greater risk of developing mental health disorders,” Oxford University professor Paul Harrison, who worked at the University of Ottawa, told CBS News. on the study.
Researchers sought to answer this question by looking at the rates of psychiatric diagnoses in patients within three months of being diagnosed with COVID-19, Harrison said.
The group used the TriNetX Analytics Network, which collects data from electronic medical records of 54 healthcare organizations in the U.S. This includes data on 69.8 million patients – of which 62,354 were diagnosed with COVID-19 between January 20 and August 1. how many of these patients had been diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder.
For comparison, the researchers also measured the rate of diagnoses of psychiatric disorders in patients who had suffered six other health events such as the flu, respiratory tract infections or a large bone fracture.
“It’s important to try to find out what may be due to COVID itself or what could be due to the environment we live in, ”explained Harrison.
The researchers looked for diagnoses of dementia, insomnia, anxiety and mood disorders in COVID-19 patients as well as those diagnosed with the other six health conditions, which served as a control group.
“Within 90 days of being diagnosed, about 18% or almost 1 in 5 people who had COVID were diagnosed with psychiatry of one type or another – the highest being an anxiety disorder,” Harrison said.
He said about 6% of COVID-19 patients who had never been diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder before received one within three months of COVID-19. The most common, again, was anxiety.
Harrison said there are two probable causes of psychiatric disorders associated with COVID-19. “One possibility is that there could be a direct effect of the virus producing the symptoms. Perhaps what the virus could do in some people’s brains, or how some people’s immune systems reacted to fight the virus. virus, ”he said.
“There is a clue that this could be a biological explanation for some people.”
The other possible cause may be the psychological reactions people must undergo when diagnosed with the virus, Harrison said.
“The psychological reactions people have to COVID, worrying about their lives perhaps for the first time, worrying about the future – in a way, COVID is just acting like another major stressful event , rather than a direct viral effect ”told me.
Compared to the other six illnesses and health events, COVID-19 has led to more early diagnoses of psychiatric disorders, according to the study.
“It’s possible to speculate that at the moment you’re more stressed out when someone tells you you have COVID than if someone tells you you have most of the other issues with you,” Harrison said, adding that it’s too hard to know if that’s a specific reason.
Harrison said there were still other questions that needed to be answered after the Oxford study. He also said he suspected people diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder after being diagnosed with COVID-19 of recovering from it.
“If you look at almost every other cause of anxiety and depression that I can think of, a significant proportion of people improve, either with time and / or with treatment,” he said. “In my own clinical practice, in the COVID survivors that I have seen, I have certainly seen some people who clearly improve and others who clearly aren’t.
“I suspect there will be a range of results and we will need longer term studies where we can actually measure that over time,” he continued.
Harrison said the second part of the Oxford study was to ask: Are people who already have a psychiatric diagnosis more at risk of getting COVID-19 than people without a psychiatric diagnosis?
“To my surprise, the answer is yes,” Harrison said. “People who had a psychiatric diagnosis the year before COVID arrived … they were about 65% more likely to be diagnosed with COVID than people without a psychiatric diagnosis.
Harrison said he and his colleagues were baffled by the discovery. “Is it just because people with psychiatric problems also tend to have more serious physical health problems?” he asked.
To determine this, the group of researchers checked for physical health factors – and the effect did not go away. “So there seems to be a link between having a psychiatric diagnosis and your risk for COVID-19,” Harrison said.
“Much like the first part of the study, there are really two explanations for this,” he continued. “The first is that there is a link between the factors that make you vulnerable to psychiatric illnesses and the factors that make you vulnerable to COVID.” For example, he explained, inflammation could play a role in both of these conditions.
But other factors that are difficult to measure, such as lifestyle or behavior, can play a role in both psychiatric illness and other illnesses like COVID-19. “This could explain why they are more vulnerable to catching COVID,” he said. “To take a simple possibility, they may live in slightly more crowded conditions and therefore have a higher chance of catching the virus.”
“The important thing is that he may or may not have a psychiatric illness that puts you at risk for COVID, it could be one of those related factors,” Harrison said.
Another study published in The Lancet Psychiatry in June examined 153 patients hospitalized with severe cases of COVID-19 to see if they had neurological and psychiatric complications associated with the virus. The study found that 125 of the patients did.
Over 60% of patients have had strokes, the majority of which occurred in patients 60 years of age or older.
About a third of the patients presented with “an altered mental state such as inflammation of the brain, psychosis and dementia-like symptoms,” according to the June study. This includes signs of confusion or changes in behavior.
Almost a quarter of patients with altered mental status have been diagnosed with psychiatric disorders, the “vast majority” of which were found to be newly developed. However, the researchers say it is possible that some were simply not diagnosed until the patient developed the virus.
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