One In Three COVID-19 Survivors Face Mental Health Issues, Shows Study

As many as one in three Covid-19 survivors received a diagnosis for a neurological or psychological condition within six months of their infection, researchers said, suggesting that the pandemic could lead to a wave of mental and neurological problems.

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The study, published in the science journal The Lancet Psychiatry, was led by Oxford University researchers who looked at 14 neurological and mental health disorders in 2,36,379 Covid-19 patients, mostly from the US.

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Previous researches have found post-traumatic stress disorder in Covid-19 survivors as well as anxiety, depression or insomnia disorders in Covid-19 patients in the first three months after infection. However, this new study has a far larger sample size and an observation period of six months.

Coronavirus mental health study

Researchers said it was not clear how the coronavirus was linked to psychiatric conditions such as anxiety and depression, but they were the most common condition observed in Covid-19 survivors at 17 per cent and 14 per cent respectively.

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Neurological disorders such as stroke and dementia were rarer, the researchers said, but were still significant, especially in those admitted to intensive care.

¡°These are real-world data from a large number of patients. They confirm the high rates of psychiatric diagnoses after Covid-19, and show that serious disorders affecting the nervous system (such as stroke and dementia) occur too," said lead author Paul Harrison, Professor at the University of Oxford, in a statement.

¡°Although the individual risks for most disorders are small, the effect across the whole population may be substantial for health and social care systems due to the scale of the pandemic and that many of these conditions are chronic,¡± he added.

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Covid-19 causes greater neurological risk

The study also found that Covid-19 patients had a 44 per cent increased risk for neurological and psychiatric illness compared to people recovering from flu, and a 16 per cent greater risk than those with respiratory tract infections.

"Our results indicate that brain diseases and psychiatric disorders are more common after Covid-19 than after flu or other respiratory infections, even when patients are matched for other risk factors. We now need to see what happens beyond six months,¡± said Max Taquet, a psychiatrist at Britain's Oxford University, who co-led the work.