People with severe COVID have a greatly increased risk of mental illness following their infection For example, severe COVID increases risk of depression 16-fold However, that risk is not present in people who have been vaccinated THURSDAY, Aug. 22, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- People stricken with a severe case of COVID-19 have a higher risk of mental illness in the year following their infection, a new study warns. However, vaccination appears to ward off these effects on mental health, researchers reported Aug.
21 in the journal JAMA Psychiatry . People hospitalized for COVID have a 16 times higher risk of developing depression, in one example provided by researchers. Even those COVID patients not hospitalized have more than a doubled risk of depression.
However, the incidence of depression among people vaccinated against COVID was the same as that of people never infected with the coronavirus, results showed. “Our results highlight the importance COVID-19 vaccination in the general population and particularly among those with mental illnesses, who may be at higher risk of both SARS-CoV-2 infection and adverse outcomes following COVID-19,” said lead researcher Venexia Walker , a senior research fellow in epidemiology at the University of Bristol Medical School in the U.K.
. For the study, researchers analyzed the medical records of more than 18.6 million adults aged 18 and older in England.
All these records covered the period before COVID vaccination was available, and abo.