Psychiatric consequences of coronavirus infections
A systematic review and meta-analysis of the psychiatric consequences of coronavirus infections has recently been published in The Lancet Psychiatry journal.
Researchers identified 72 studies (65 peer review and seven pre-print) that featured data on the acute and post-illness psychiatric and neuropsychiatric features of coronavirus infections of 3,550 patients hospitalised with SARS, MERS, and COVID-19, aged between 12.2 and 68 years.
The authors found acute cases of SARS or MERS included confusion 27·9%, depressed mood 32·6%, anxiety 35·7%, impaired memory 34·1%, insomnia 41·9%, steroid-induced mania and psychosis 0·7%.
While post-illness cases were reported to have depressed mood 10·5%, insomnia 12·1%, anxiety 12·3%, irritability 12·8%, memory impairment 18·9%, fatigue 19·3% and in one study traumatic memories 30·4%.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(20)30203-0