Close to 1 in 5 COVID-19 Patients Are Later Diagnosed With Mental Illness, Study Says

Close to 1 in 5 COVID-19 Patients Are Later Diagnosed With Mental Illness, Study Says.

A study conducted by the University of Oxford and NIHR Oxford Health Biomedical has found a possible link between COVID-19 and mental illness.

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According to their analysis, 18.1 percent of people who have tested positive for COVID-19 were later diagnosed with a mental illness.

This includes psychiatric disorders such as anxiety, depression or insomnia.

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For 5.8 percent of people, it was their first diagnosis of a mental illness.

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The calculations were made based off around 70 million U.S. health records.

Paul Harrison, a psychiatry professor at the University of Oxford, noted that the stressful environment of the COVID-19 pandemic may play a role in the diagnoses.

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Even so, Harrison says that its “not at all unlikely” that COVID-19 could be causing “neurological symptoms and difficulties.” .

... it’s not at all unlikely that there may also be a brain effect of the virus in certain people that is going to cause certain more neurological symptoms and difficulties, Paul Harrison, via ‘The Guardian’