Reyes Magana, Teamsters Local 848 corporate agent, was tested for COVID-19 at an International Brotherhood of Teamsters test site on July 16, 2020 in Long Beach, California.
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One in three survivors of Covid-19 suffered from a neurological or psychiatric condition within six months of infection with the virus, according to an observational study of more than 230,000 patient records.
The study, published Tuesday in the journal The Lancet Psychiatry, analyzed data from the electronic health records of 236,379 Covid-19 patients of the US TriNetX network, which includes more than 81 million people.
This group was compared with 105,579 patients with a diagnosis of influenza and 236,038 patients with a respiratory tract infection (including influenza).
Overall, the estimated incidence of a diagnosis of a neurological or mental disorder after a Covid-19 infection was 34%, the study led by researchers at the University of Oxford found when looking at 14 neurological and mental disorders.
For 13% of these people, it was their first recorded neurological or psychiatric diagnosis.
The most common diagnoses after the coronavirus were anxiety disorders (occurring in 17% of patients), mood disorders (14%), substance abuse disorders (7%) and insomnia (5%). The incidence of neurological outcomes was lower, including 0.6% for cerebral hemorrhage, 2.1% for ischemic stroke and 0.7% for dementia.
After taking into account underlying health characteristics, such as age, gender, ethnicity and pre-existing health conditions, there was an overall 44% greater risk of neurological and mental health diagnoses after Covid-19 than after influenza, and a 16% greater risk after Covid -19 than with respiratory infections.
Since the coronavirus first appeared in China in late 2019, there have been more than 132 million cases of the virus and more than 2.8 million deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
Professor Paul Harrison, lead author of the study from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Oxford, said the latest study highlights the need to equip health care systems to address potentially higher rates of neurological conditions in survivors of the virus.
“These are real-life data from a large number of patients. They confirm the high rate of psychiatric diagnoses after Covid-19 and show that there are also serious disorders affecting the nervous system (such as stroke and dementia). Much rarer, they are significant. , especially in those who had severe Covid-19, ”he noted.
While the individual risks are small for most conditions, the impact across the population could be significant for health and social care systems due to the scale of the pandemic and the fact that many of these conditions are chronic. anticipated need, both within primary and secondary care. “
Dr. Max Taquet, a co-author of the Oxford University study, said further research was needed to see “what happens after six months.”
“The study cannot reveal the mechanisms involved, but does indicate the need for urgent research to identify them with a view to preventing or treating them.”
Since the pandemic surfaced in the spring of 2020 and spread around the world, there have been a number of studies examining the virus’s short- and long-term effects. Oxford University’s Department of Psychiatry noted that there is a growing concern that survivors may be at increased risk for neurological disorders.
A previous observational study by the same research group reported that survivors of Covid-19 are at an increased risk of mood and anxiety disorders in the first three months after infection. the six months after the Covid-19 infection, ”the department said.