Psychiatric symptoms in Long-COVID
Citation: Marchi M, Grenzi P, Serafini V, et al. Psychiatric symptoms in Long-COVID patients: a systematic review. Frontiers in Psychiatry. 2023:14;1138389.
Language: Abstract and full text available in EN.
Free to view: Yes.
Funding sources: Nothing noted.
What is this? In this systematic review, the authors searched for experimental and observational studies on the prevalence of emerging psychiatric symptoms or diagnoses among people aged 18 years or older with long-COVID syndrome (LC). They included peer-reviewed studies published in any language before May 2022. They excluded studies of participants with a pre-existing psychiatric condition, or who had psychiatric symptoms noted within four weeks after COVID-19 recovery. They found 33 studies (282,711 participants). This systematic review was registered with PROSPERO, number CRD 42022299408.
What was found? The most common psychiatric symptoms associated with long-COVID were depression, anxiety, cognitive and sleep disturbances, and post-traumatic symptoms. The authors did not find a significant association between the severity of COVID-19 infection and the development of psychiatric symptoms. The authors noted that one of the studies accounted for 96% of the total sample, which might have influenced the findings disproportionately.
Implications: The authors of the review stated that more research is needed to compare different patient groups and study designs.
Other considerations: The authors of the review did not discuss their findings in the context of issues relating to health equity.
This summary was prepared by Eszter Szocs, checked by Grace Meng, and finalized by William Summerskill.