Psychological Morbidity Among COVID-19 Survivors: A Cross-Sectional Study Among Health Care Workers, 2022, Uvais et al

ABSTRACT

Objective: A range of psychiatric morbidities such as persistent depression, anxiety, insomnia, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been observed in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) survivors. The objective of this study was to explore the psychological status of health care workers after recovery from COVID-19 and to examine the sociodemographic and clinical factors associated with psychiatric morbidity.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among health care workers of a tertiary care hospital in South India. The study included health care workers who tested positive for COVID-19 according to the provisional guidelines of the World Health Organization. The data were collected after they tested negative for COVID-19 from September 2020 to October 2020. The study used a semistructured proforma and rating scales such as the 9-item Patient Health Questionnaire, 7-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale, and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist for DSM-5 to assess for depression, anxiety, and PTSD.

Results: The results indicate that the prevalence of depression, anxiety, and PTSD among 107 post-COVID patients was 26.2%%, 12.1%, and 3.7%%, respectively. Female sex (P = .017), patients with post-COVID persistent physical symptoms (P = .05), and the duration of fever during the acute phase of COVID-19 infection (P = .005) were found to have a statistically significant association with a higher rate of depression among the study population.

Conclusions: The study findings indicate that all COVID-19 survivors working in the health care sector should be screened for depression and anxiety disorders regularly for early detection and effective management.

Open access, https://www.psychiatrist.com/pcc/co...rs-cross-sectional-study-health-care-workers/

 

I am not motivated to read the article but if depression is assessed via questionnaires can we be sure it reliably distinguishes between depression and Long Covid, give psychological questionnaires often assume physical symptoms such as fatigue or reduced activity levels are rather indications of psychological pathologies. Also given insomnia is a potential symptom of Long Covid, did the researchers make an effort to distinguish between it as a symptom of a biomedical condition and it as a ‘psychological morbidity’.

Interestingly, PTSD is perhaps the psychological condition that is least likely to be confused with Long Covid and is also by far the least frequent of their three ‘psychological morbidities’.

 

Also did the researchers have a control group of health care workers who did not have Covid, given the demands of working in health care through an ongoing major pandemic?