LONDON (Reuters) – One in three survivors of COVID-19 in a study of more than 230,000 mostly American patients were diagnosed with brain or psychiatric disorder within six months, suggesting that the pandemic could trigger a spate of mental and neurological problems, scientists say. on Tuesday.
Researchers who conducted the analysis said it was not clear how the virus was linked to psychiatric conditions such as anxiety and depression, but that these were the most common diagnoses of the 14 conditions they looked at.
Post-COVID cases of stroke, dementia and other neurological conditions were rarer, the researchers said, but were still significant, especially in those with severe COVID-19.
“Our results indicate that brain and psychiatric disorders are more common after COVID-19 than after influenza or other respiratory infections,” said Max Taquet, a psychiatrist at Oxford University, UK, who co-led the work.
The study could not determine the biological or psychological mechanisms involved, he said, but urgent research is needed to identify them “with a view to preventing or treating them.”
Health experts are increasingly concerned about the evidence of higher risks of brain and mental disorders among COVID-19 survivors. A previous study by the same researchers last year found that 20% of COVID-19 survivors were diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder within three months.
The new findings, published in the journal Lancet Psychiatry, analyzed health data from 236,379 COVID-19 patients, mostly from the United States, and found that 34% were diagnosed with neurological or psychiatric conditions within six months.
The disorders were significantly more common in COVID-19 patients than in comparison groups of people who recovered from flu or other respiratory infections over the same time period, the scientists said, suggesting that COVID-19 had a specific impact.
Anxiety, at 17%, and mood disturbances, at 14%, were the most common and did not appear to be related to how mild or severe the patient’s COVID-19 infection had been.
Of those admitted to intensive care with severe COVID-19, 7% had a stroke within six months and nearly 2% were diagnosed with dementia.
“While the individual risks are small for most conditions, the impact on the entire population can be significant,” said Paul Harrison, an Oxford psychiatry professor who co-led the work.
Reporting by Kate Kelland, published by Emelia Sithole-Matarise