According to a study, around 20% of coronavirus patients later develop a new mental illness. The most common mental illnesses experienced by those who have recovered from COVID-19 and survived within three months of their diagnoses are depression, anxiety, and insomnia.
Battling with mental illness
The study was published in The Lancet Psychiatry journal. According to Paul Harrison, a psychiatry professor at Britain's Oxford University, people have been worried that COVID-19 survivors will be at greater risk of mental health problems and their findings show this to be likely.
According to researchers, the study group was twice as likely to suffer from a new mental illness than other groups of patients during the same period.
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Michael Bloomfield, a consultant psychiatrist at University College London, said that mental illness development is due to a combination of the psychological stressors linked with this pandemic and the physical effects of the illness.
Professor Harrison said that doctors and scientists worldwide need to investigate the causes urgently and need to identify new treatments for mental illness after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Harrison added that health services need to be ready to provide care to patients. That is because the results are likely to be underestimated due to the limited number of psychiatric patients.
The study analyzed electronic health records of 69 million people in the United States alone. This includes more than 62,000 cases of COVID-19. The findings are also likely to be the same for those afflicted by the virus worldwide, according to the researchers, according to CDC.
In the three months after testing positive for COVID-19, 1 out of 15 survivors was recorded as having a diagnosis of depression, anxiety, or insomnia for the first time. This is twice as likely as for other groups of patients in the same period.
The study also noted that those diagnosed with pre-existing mental illness were 65% more likely to be diagnosed with COVID-19. This is way more than those patients without any pre-existing conditions, according to The Guardian.
Dangers of mental health
Mental health specialists that are not directly involved with the study said that its findings add to growing evidence that COVID-19 can affect a person's brain and mind. This then increased the risk of a range of psychiatric illnesses.
Simon Wessely, regius professor of psychiatry at King's College London, said that the study regarding those with pre-existing mental health disorders is at higher risk of getting COVID-19 is connected to this recent study's findings of patients developing mental illness after recovering from COVID-19.
Wessely said that COVID-19 affects the central nervous system, and so it might directly increase subsequent disorders. But this research confirms that it is not the whole story and that the risk is increased by previous mental health illness.
Meanwhile, Marjorie Wallace, the chief executive of the UK mental health charity SANE, said that the study echoed her charity's experience during the pandemic.
Wallace added that their helpline is currently dealing with a spike in the number of first-time callers who are suffering from mental health issues and those who have pre-existing conditions and are relapsing because their anxiety and fear have become intolerable.
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