COVID-19 may affect mental health one year after recovery

“If people are suffering after COVID-19 Sleep problems Also depression Also anxiety, You are not alone. We see thousands of people like you. Definitely ask for help. ” Principal Investigator Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly is a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine and the St. Louis Veterans Medical System.

Al-Aly believes that these issues need to be taken seriously.

“I want to pay more attention to that and prevent the balloon from inflating or becoming a much bigger crisis in the future,” he said. “I think the risk will increase. Opioid use..There is an increase in risk Suicidal ideation, We see depression, see anxiety, and to me it’s like a perfect storm for another opioid epidemic and another suicide epidemic. ”

It is not clear how the virus affects the brain, but Al-Aly believes that COVID-19’s invasion of brain cells causes damage.

“The virus can actually invade the brain and cause a variety of problems, including disruption of neuronal connections, elevated elevation of some inflammatory markers, disruption of signal transduction, and changes in brain structure. Forgetfulness Or neurocognition [thinking] It will decline. ”

Physicians need to pay attention to these issues among patients who have recovered from COVID-19, Al-Aly said.

“Doctors really need to understand that COVID-19 is a risk factor for these problems, so ask about mental health and about pain,” he said. “The most important thing is to diagnose these conditions early and deal with them before they get worse.”

In this study, Al-Aly and his colleagues used a database from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to determine approximately 154,000 adults infected with COVID-19 between March 1, 2020 and January 15, 2021. Gathered information about.

Using these data, researchers compared mental health results to nearly 6 million people who did not have COVID-19 and an additional 6 million people before the pandemic began.

Most of the participants were older Caucasian men, but due to the size of the study, more than 1 million females and more than 2 million black patients and adults of all ages were included.

Al-Aly’s team found that people infected with COVID-19 were 35% more likely to suffer from anxiety and nearly 40% more likely to suffer from depression and stress-related disorders. Among these patients, antidepressant use increased by 55%, Benzodiazepine Treat anxiety.

Researchers also said that 41% of these patients were more likely to have a disability and 80% were more likely to have thought decline, including forgetting, confusion, and lack of concentration. ..

Patients with COVID-19 are also 34% more likely to develop opioid addiction, 20% more likely to develop addiction to alcohol and illicit drugs, and 46% more likely to have suicidal ideation. all right.

Researchers have found that the risk of psychological problems is associated with the severity of COVID-19 infection. Patients with mild cases were 27% more likely to develop mental problems, and patients with severe infections were 45% more likely to develop.

These risks were not seen in other illnesses like the flu, Al-Aly said.

The report was published online on Wednesday BMJ..

Some experts consider the mental persistence of the virus in some patients to be a serious problem.

“I think the neurological and psychiatric effects of the virus are the second pandemic,” said Dr. Marc Siegel, a clinical professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City. “Most of the time, the fog in the brain clears, but I’m not completely aware of this long-term effect and I’m very worried.”

Reducing the risk of these mental and emotional problems and becoming dependent on drugs and alcohol is another reason why vaccination is important.

Vaccination reduces your risk of suffering from these problems. “Vaccination may reduce your risk of this, even if you have a breakthrough [infection]”Siegel said.

For more information

For more information on COVID-19 and mental health, American Psychological Association..

Copyright © 2021 Health Day. all rights reserved.