Key Takeaways
Severe COVID-19 patients are at significantly increased risk of developing mental illness after infection
For example, severe COVID-19 increases the risk of depression by 16 times
But that risk is not present in people who have been vaccinated.
THURSDAY, Aug. 22, 2024 (HealthDay News) — Patients with severe COVID-19 may be at higher risk of developing mental illness in the year after infection, a new study warns.
But vaccination appears to prevent these effects on mental health, researchers reported August 21 in JAMA Psychiatry.
For example, researchers gave that people hospitalized with COVID were 16 times more likely to develop depression, and even non-hospitalized COVID patients were more than twice as likely to develop depression.
But the rates of depression in people who received the COVID-19 vaccine were the same as those in people who had never been infected with the coronavirus, the study found.
“Our findings highlight the importance of COVID-19 vaccination for the general population, and particularly for people with mental illness, who may be at higher risk of both SARS-CoV-2 infection and adverse outcomes after COVID-19,” said lead researcher Venecia Walker, a senior research fellow in epidemiology at the University of Bristol Medical School in the UK.
For the study, researchers analysed the medical records of more than 18.6 million adults in England aged over 18. All of these records covered the period before a COVID vaccine was available, and around one million of the patients had a confirmed COVID diagnosis.
The team also analyzed a group of more than 14 million vaccinated people, of whom more than 866,000 have been diagnosed with COVID, and a group of more than 3.2 million unvaccinated people with around 150,000 confirmed cases of COVID.
Overall, we found that COVID infection increases the risk of most psychiatric disorders within 1 to 4 weeks of onset, primarily following severe infection leading to hospitalization.
The researchers added that for unvaccinated people, risk remains elevated for up to a year after developing severe COVID-19.
According to the researchers, mental illnesses examined in the study included depression, anxiety disorders, PTSD, eating disorders, addictions, self-harm, suicide and serious mental disorders such as schizophrenia.
“We have already identified associations between COVID-19 and cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and now mental illness,” researcher Jonathan Stern, professor of medical statistics and epidemiology at the University of Bristol Medical School, said in a university news release.
Source: University of Bristol, news release, 21 August 2024
What this means for you
Vaccination can help mitigate the long-term effects of COVID infection, including the potential impact on mental illness.
