Acute COVID-19 severity and mental health morbidity trajectories in patient populations of six nations : an observational study

• Published in: The Lancet Public Health
• Main Author: COVIDMENT Collaboration
• Other Authors: Faculty of Medicine, Other departments
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2022
• Subjects: COVID-19/complications; COVID-19 Testing; Cross-Sectional Studies; Follow-Up Studies; Humans; Mental Health; Morbidity; Covid-19; Geðheilsa; Public Health; Environmental and Occupational Health; Norway; Iceland
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11815/3340; https://doi.org/10.1016/S2468-2667(22)00042-1

Funding Information: This work was supported by grants from Canadian Institutes of Health Research (IRSC) and Fonds de la Recherche en Santé du Québec (FRSQ). Publisher Copyright: Copyright © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. BACKGROUND: Long-term mental and physical health consequences of COVID-19 (long COVID) are a persistent public health concern. Little is still known about the long-term mental health of non-hospitalised patients with COVID-19 with varying illness severities. Our aim was to assess the prevalence of adverse mental health symptoms among individuals diagnosed with COVID-19 in the general population by acute infection severity up to 16 months after diagnosis. METHODS: This observational follow-up study included seven prospectively planned cohorts across six countries (Denmark, Estonia, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and the UK). Participants were recruited from March 27, 2020, to Aug 13, 2021. Individuals aged 18 years or older were eligible to participate. In a cross-sectional analysis, we contrasted symptom prevalence of depression, anxiety, COVID-19-related distress, and poor sleep quality (screened with validated mental health instruments) among individuals with and without a diagnosis of COVID-19 at entry, 0-16 months from diagnosis. In a cohort analysis, we further used repeated measures to estimate the change in mental health symptoms before and after COVID-19 diagnosis. FINDINGS: The analytical cohort consisted of 247 249 individuals, 9979 (4·0%) of whom were diagnosed with COVID-19 during the study period. Mean follow-up was 5·65 months (SD 4·26). Participants diagnosed with COVID-19 presented overall with a higher prevalence of symptoms of depression (prevalence ratio [PR] 1·18 [95% CI 1·03-1·36]) and poorer sleep quality (1·13 [1·03-1·24]) but not symptoms of anxiety (0·97 [0·91-1·03]) or COVID-19-related distress (1·05 [0·93-1·20]) compared with individuals ...