COVID-19 and Mental Illnesses in Vaccinated and Unvaccinated People 2024

Key Points

Question What are the associations between mental illnesses and diagnosed COVID-19 by vaccination status in patients hospitalized for COVID-19 and the general population?

Findings In this cohort study, depression, serious mental illness, general anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder, eating disorders, addiction, self-harm, and suicide were elevated during weeks 1 through 4 after COVID-19 diagnosis compared with before or without COVID-19. Incidence was lower in people who were vaccinated when they had COVID-19 and incidence was higher, and persisted longer, after hospitalization for COVID-19.

Meaning The findings support recommendation of COVID-19 vaccination in the general population and particularly among those with mental illness, who may be at higher risk of both SARS-CoV-2 infection and adverse outcomes following COVID-19.

Abstract
Importance Associations have been found between COVID-19 and subsequent mental illness in both hospital- and population-based studies. However, evidence regarding which mental illnesses are associated with COVID-19 by vaccination status in these populations is limited.

Objective To determine which mental illnesses are associated with diagnosed COVID-19 by vaccination status in both hospitalized patients and the general population.

Design, Setting, and Participants This study was conducted in 3 cohorts, 1 before vaccine availability followed during the wild-type/Alpha variant eras (January 2020-June 2021) and 2 (vaccinated and unvaccinated) during the Delta variant era (June-December 2021). With National Health Service England approval, OpenSAFELY-TPP was used to access linked data from 24 million people registered with general practices in England using TPP SystmOne. People registered with a GP in England for at least 6 months and alive with known age between 18 and 110 years, sex, deprivation index information, and region at baseline were included. People were excluded if they had COVID-19 before baseline. Data were analyzed from July 2022 to June 2024.

Exposure Confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis recorded in primary care secondary care, testing data, or the death registry.

Main Outcomes and Measures Adjusted hazard ratios (aHRs) comparing the incidence of mental illnesses after diagnosis of COVID-19 with the incidence before or without COVID-19 for depression, serious mental illness, general anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder, eating disorders, addiction, self-harm, and suicide.

Results The largest cohort, the pre–vaccine availability cohort, included 18 648 606 people (9 363 710 [50.2%] female and 9 284 896 [49.8%] male) with a median (IQR) age of 49 (34-64) years. The vaccinated cohort included 14 035 286 individuals (7 308 556 [52.1%] female and 6 726 730 [47.9%] male) with a median (IQR) age of 53 (38-67) years. The unvaccinated cohort included 3 242 215 individuals (1 363 401 [42.1%] female and 1 878 814 [57.9%] male) with a median (IQR) age of 35 (27-46) years. Incidence of most outcomes was elevated during weeks 1 through 4 after COVID-19 diagnosis, compared with before or without COVID-19, in each cohort. Incidence of mental illnesses was lower in the vaccinated cohort compared with the pre–vaccine availability and unvaccinated cohorts: aHRs for depression and serious mental illness during weeks 1 through 4 after COVID-19 were 1.93 (95% CI, 1.88-1.98) and 1.49 (95% CI, 1.41-1.57) in the pre–vaccine availability cohort and 1.79 (95% CI, 1.68-1.90) and 1.45 (95% CI, 1.27-1.65) in the unvaccinated cohort compared with 1.16 (95% CI, 1.12-1.20) and 0.91 (95% CI, 0.85-0.98) in the vaccinated cohort. Elevation in incidence was higher and persisted longer after hospitalization for COVID-19.

Conclusions and Relevance In this study, incidence of mental illnesses was elevated for up to a year following severe COVID-19 in unvaccinated people. These findings suggest that vaccination may mitigate the adverse effects of COVID-19 on mental health.

COVID-19 and Mental Illnesses in Vaccinated and Unvaccinated People | Coronavirus (COVID-19) | JAMA Psychiatry | JAMA Network

 

A Massive New Study Suggests Getting COVID Might Really Mess With People’s Mental Health
If you get seriously ill, you’re more likely to experience things like depression, PTSD, eating disorders, and self-harm, according to the research.

A Massive New Study Suggests Getting COVID Might Really Mess With People’s Mental Health | SELF

 

once again proving their scales are full of heavily skewed questions and quacks will seek the easy path of doing as little as possible for most patients whose life has just undergone significant change for the worse.

 

As long as they use questionnaires with overlapping questions, this is meaningless. But of course they use those questionnaires precisely because it gives them a lot of false positives, to fit in with the old psychosomatic myths. To get valid results they would need to screen out anyone with Long Covid. But obviously to a hammer, everything looks like a nail and doing that is considered useful to someone who wants there to be lots of nails. Proper science works with the principle of "all other things being equal", and too much medical research is the opposite of that. There aren't a handful of confounders, there are basically hundreds and many of those are amplified on purpose with the overlapping questions.

Which is sad because it's clear that COVID does cause "mental illness", but it's clear that it has a physiological mechanism and that makes it pretty much pointless and misleading to frame things this way. Something needs to happen to differentiate psychological illness from illnesses that affect behavior, perception and such. But after decades of building the entire thing asking overlapping questions, it's just too hard to stop making those mistakes.