What’s the link between long Covid and mental health? A study just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests it’s a significant one. The paper looked at more than 3,000 people who tested positive for Covid in the US. Of those who went on to develop ‘long Covid’, it found many of them already experienced mental distress before catching the virus.
The study looked at 3,193 people – mostly women – who reported Covid symptoms continuing four weeks after first falling ill. They found that those reporting long Covid were more likely to have already experienced a range of symptoms including ‘depression, anxiety, worry about Covid, loneliness and stress’ before they tested positive. The risk increased between 1.3 and 1.5 fold. Scientists say this shows an association between prior mental health conditions and symptoms of Covid that last for more than four weeks. They were keen to stress that this only means mental health may be a risk factor, not that it is one.
If you’re a child of a long Covid patient, your odds of reporting the condition went up too
Speak to doctors and they’ll tell you they knew this from the start.
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