Local business agent 848 Teamsters Reyes Magana is being tested for COVID-19 at a test site provided by the International Teamster Brotherhood on July 16, 2020 in Long Beach, California.
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One in three Covid-19 survivors suffered a neurological or psychiatric disorder within six months of becoming infected with the virus, according to an observational study of more than 230,000 health records of patients.
The study, published Tuesday in The Lancet Psychiatry, looked at data from the electronic health records of 236,379 Covid-19 patients on the US TriNetX network, which includes more than 81 million people.
This group was compared with 105,579 patients diagnosed with influenza and 236,038 patients diagnosed with any respiratory tract infection (including influenza).
Overall, the estimated incidence of being diagnosed with a neurological or mental health disorder following Covid-19 infection was 34%, the study led by researchers at Oxford University found when analyzing 14 neurological and mental health disorders. .
For 13% of these people, it was their first recorded neurological or psychiatric diagnosis.
The most common diagnoses after 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 considering the underlying health characteristics, such as age, sex, ethnicity, and existing health conditions, there was generally a 44% higher risk of neurological and mental health diagnoses after Covid-19 than after influenza, and a 16% higher risk after Covid -19 than with respiratory tract infections.
Since the coronavirus first appeared in China in late 2019, more than 132 million cases of the virus and more than 2.8 million deaths have been reported, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
Professor Paul Harrison, lead author of the study in the Department of Psychiatry at Oxford University, said the latest study highlights the need for health care systems to be equipped to deal with a potentially higher number of neurological disorders in virus survivors.
“These are real-world data from a large number of patients. These confirm the high rates of psychiatric diagnoses after Covid-19 and show that serious disorders affecting the nervous system (such as stroke and dementia) also occur. While the latter are much rarer, they are significant, especially in those who have had severe Covid-19, “he noted.
“Although the individual risks for most disorders are small, the effect on the entire population can be substantial for health and social care systems, due to the magnitude of the pandemic and that many of these conditions are chronic. As a result, health care systems need to be resourced to meet anticipated needs in both primary and secondary care services. “
Dr Max Taquet, 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 indicates the need for urgent research to identify them, in order to prevent or treat them.”
Since the pandemic broke out and spread around the world in the spring of 2020, there have been a number of investigations into the short- and long-term effects of the virus. The Department of Psychiatry at Oxford University said there was growing concern that survivors could be at increased risk for neurological disorders.
“A previous observational study by the same research group reported that Covid-19 survivors have an increased risk of mood disorders and anxiety in the first three months after infection. However, to date, there have been no large-scale data examining the risks of neurological as well as psychiatric diagnoses in the six months following Covid-19 infection, “the department said.