Covid is NOT more likely to cause depression than other respiratory infections, study claims –

A large study says that Covid no longer causes depression, anxiety or other psychological problems rather than single serious infections.

Oxford University researchers found that rates of psychiatric disorders were “similar” in people admitted to hospital with Covid and other respiratory illnesses.

They looked at around 17,000 patients who were admitted to the UK with the virus that caused the pandemic between January 2020 and July 2021, and compared them to 32,000 people who were hospitalized for another respiratory infection between 2015 and 2020.

Results were compared with rates of major psychiatric disorders among the nearly 8 million members of the public.

The results showed that people who survived severe Covid were almost twice as likely to develop depression a year after leaving the hospital than the general public.

But those admitted for flu, pneumonia, or other serious infections, such as pneumonia, had a three-and-a-half-fold increased risk.

Covid patients were three and a half times more likely than the general public to develop anxiety in the year after discharge, while those with other infections had an 86% higher risk.

This is because scientists are still struggling to define “long Covid,” the umbrella term for the wide variety of symptoms reported by virus survivors.

The authors suggest that people who are seriously ill with Covid should be treated in the same way as other long-acting respiratory viruses.

JAMA Psychiatric Registrars said the risk of mental illness after severe Covid is “similar to other severe acute respiratory infections”.

They added: “This finding may provide post-discharge support to people recovering from SARI.”

The study also found that people with Covid had a lower risk of psychotic disorders and an equal chance of becoming bipolar later in life.

This comes after a number of other studies have suggested that Covid has long been overestimated, with people showing symptoms of the separate illness.

The March Office of National Statistics report showed that only one in 100 school-age students had the condition, even though half of the parents had reported at least one of the symptoms.

But there is some evidence that because of the way Covid spreads through the blood, it can damage vital organs and destroy the brain.

The new study tracked clinical data from 8.38 million adult patients. About 32,525 people were hospitalized with Covid and survived between January 24, 2020 and July 7, 2021.

Meanwhile, 16,679 were hospitalized and another respiratory virus survived between January 24, 2015 and January 23, 2020.

The groups were matched for age and other factors that could affect a person’s risk of developing health problems.

Hospitalization for Covid included all hospital patients who tested positive for the virus 14 days after admission.

In contrast, SARI hospitals were only registered if the virus was the main cause of hospitalizations.

The researchers tested whether the patients had been diagnosed with five mental illnesses the following year: anxiety, dementia, psychotic disorder, depression, and bipolar disorder.

These were compared for groups admitted with Covid, YELLOW, or no disease at all.

People with Covid were more likely to develop all five diseases than those who were not hospitalized during the year.

However, they were not more at risk than those admitted to SARI for bipolar disorder.

Both diseases had a 126% higher risk than not having the virus.

SARI saw a 246% higher risk of developing depression than those who were not admitted. For survivors of Covid, the risk was only 95%.

Meanwhile, SARI survivors had a higher risk of psychotic disorder (263%) than Covid (205%).

Covid had a slightly higher (136%) risk for anxiety than SARI (86%) and also a slightly higher risk for dementia – 163% compared to 155%.

The differences were not statistically significant, the researchers said, as the numbers diagnosed with psychological disorders were small in both groups.

Professor David Livermore, a medical microbiologist at the University of East Anglia, told MailOnline: “These authors looked at Covid patients who were sick enough to be hospitalized and found that the incidence of subsequent psychiatric illness was no higher than in patients with other severe respiratory infections.

“This is interesting and adds a piece to the puzzle, but says nothing about people claiming to still lose their sense of smell six months after a light dose of Covid.”

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) report estimates that as of January 2, 1.33 million adults had long-term symptoms of Covid. The chart above shows the long-term variation in Covid prevalence during the pandemic, but gives the percentage in thousand.

The latest study has dispelled some fears about long-term Covid in hospitalized patients, while other research has suggested that the condition is more common in less severe cases of the virus.

Long Covid is defined as persistent symptoms of the virus for more than a month after infection.

It is a little-known condition in patients who normally report extreme fatigue, difficulty breathing, loss of smell, and difficulty concentrating.

But it has been associated with a host of other symptoms, including joint pain, nausea, insomnia and depression.

Professor Livermore said: “The problem with the ‘long Covid’ is that it unnecessarily brings different patient groups together.

‘First, people who are slowly recovering from a serious illness that caused them to be hospitalized.

Second, those with significant persistent symptoms – respiratory distress or loss of taste – months after a more or less severe infection

“Third, for those with a single symptom, something vague like ‘brain fog’ that sometimes lasts for four weeks but will probably go away after 12 weeks.

“Some ‘long Covids’ seem to reflect ongoing inflammation and are physiological, while others are psychological.”