A study published Monday in The Lancet Public Health suggests that severe Covid-19 can increase the risk of negative long-term mental health effects, such as anxiety, depression, and poor sleep quality.
Experts from six countries — Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Estonia and the United Kingdom — developed peer-reviewed research with an association between severe cases of covid-19 and mental health 16 months after infection from the disease. SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.
“Overall, most mental health symptoms regressed among those who recovered from Covid-19 two months after diagnosis, but patients who remained bedridden for seven days or more were more likely to develop depression and anxiety during the 16-month study period,” the conclusions present.
This investigation indicates that “the effects on mental health are not the same for all Covid-19 patients and that time spent in bed is a key factor in determining the severity of the effects on mental health,” Unnur Anna Valdimarsdóttir said. Study authors.
According to the University of Iceland professor of epidemiology, increased clinical monitoring of mental health among “persons with severe acute illness from COVID-19, as well as follow-up studies after the first year after infection, are necessary to ensure timely access to care”.
To determine the long-term effects on mental health, researchers analyzed the prevalence of symptoms of depression, anxiety, distress and poor sleep quality related to covid-19 among nearly 250,000 people in the six countries with or without a diagnosis of the disease.
Over the 16 months of the study, patients who were bedridden for seven days or more were 50% to 60% more likely to develop depression and anxiety than people who were never bedridden during the period analyzed.
“The higher incidence of depression and anxiety among COVID-19 patients who have spent seven or more days in bed may be due to a combination of concern about long-term health effects, as well as persistent COVID-19 symptoms.” Beyond illness, which limits social contact and can lead to feelings of helplessness,” said researcher Ingibjörg Magnúsdóttir from the University of Iceland.
According to the results now released, people who had been diagnosed with covid-19, but did not need to be bedridden, were less likely to have symptoms of depression and anxiety than those who had never been infected.
The authors state that one explanation for this is that returning to normal life, after recovering from a mild infection, was a “comfort for these individuals, while those who did not become infected were concerned about the risk of infection and overwhelmed by social isolation”.
Covid-19 has caused at least 601,769 deaths worldwide since the start of the pandemic, according to the latest report from AFP.
The disease is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, which was discovered in late 2019 in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.
The rapidly spreading micron-micron variant has become prevalent in the world since it was first discovered in November in South Africa.
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