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As many as 2 out of 3 people with long COVID also have mental health challenges, including high rates of depression and anxiety, new research shows.
It’s a surprising finding that shows that those with long COVID may experience more mental distress than people with other chronic illnesses, such as Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.
The study, published in The Lancet, followed 236,379 patients with long COVID. The investigators found that 62% of patients had received either a neurologic or a psychological diagnosis 6 months after being diagnosed with acute COVID.
Mental distress associated with long COVID is a complex phenomenon that has biological, psychological, and social components, said Anna Dickerman, MD, a psychiatrist with New York–Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medicine and associate professor of clinical psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College.
This means that biological underpinnings caused by long COVID affect brain chemistry and give rise to psychological changes, putting a patient at higher risk for depression and anxiety, she said. In turn, changes in mental health can affect a person’s risk of social effects such as job loss, disability, and isolation, which can affect self-esteem and self-worth, compounding anxiety and depression.
Among patients with long COVID, all of these factors come together to cause what Dickerman has called “a perfect storm” that often results in depression, anxiety, and in some cases, suicidal thoughts.
Dickerman and her colleagues at New York–Presbyterian Hospital are working to understand the mental health effects of long COVID so that patients are better able to recover from both the physical and mental health effects of this chronic condition.
In an interview, Dickerman explained the mental health implications for people with long COVID and for the doctors who treat them. Excerpts of the interview follow.
How does long COVID cause changes in the brain that result in depression?
Long COVID causes inflammation in the brain that can cause the release of cytokines (proteins that are secreted from certain cells in the immune system) that are known to cause…fatigue, low energy, and low motivation ― symptoms which are also associated with depression and anxiety.
What’s more, if a patient had a serious case of acute COVID which led them to go on a ventilator, that too can cause changes in the brain. This means they could have had problems with their oxygenation status, and oxygen deprivation can have both acute and long-term effects on the brain. People can become delirious, meaning they have disturbances in their cognitive function, like attention and awareness (deficits).
Patients may also have received steroids for treatment, which have been shown to impact mood and cause depression and anxiety. It’s difficult to parse out because problems with attention and memory can also be associated with depression. Teasing apart what’s from depression and what’s from long COVID is tricky, but we do know that there’s something unique about long COVID that causes cognitive deficiencies and changes.
How do other factors associated with long COVID, such as insomnia, pain, and fatigue, affect the onset of depression and anxiety?
Insomnia itself can be a symptom of depression. It may also be a physical symptom of long COVID similar to pain or difficulty breathing. And if you’re not sleeping well, you’re going to feel worse both physically and mentally.
We also know that pain can affect mood and mood can affect pain — it’s a bio-directional relationship. For example, if you’re in pain, you’re going to feel bad, and if you’re depressed, that can also make your pain experience worse. Additionally, if you’re in pain, it causes a physical limitation that can keep you from work or seeing your friends and family. These can all impact your social life. Limitations at work can also cause financial stress, which has been shown to impact mental health.
Basically, it’s a snowball effect that can make you more depressed, and the more depressed you become, the less you’re able to participate in the activities that bring you happiness.
Are rates of suicide higher in those with long COVID?
Multiple studies have shown increased rates of suicidal ideation (thoughts) in patients with long COVID — and it’s likely correlated with the degree of physical symptom burden, especially pain. This is consistent with what the research shows us of other chronic illnesses. In terms of specifically quantifying rates of completed suicides in the long COVID population, we simply need more epidemiological data. For now, I would say it’s important for providers and the general population to know that these patients may be at increased suicide risk and to screen accordingly.
Who is most at risk for mental distress associated with long COVID?
Certainly anyone who had a preexisting mental health history before they got long COVID would be at a higher risk. There also seems to be disproportionate effects in those who have stressors related to other social determinants of health, like discrimination, poverty, and healthcare access. As a result, Black and Hispanic minority groups would be at a disproportionate risk for bad outcomes related to long COVID.
What are the most effective treatments for those who have mental health problems associated with long COVID?
This work is ongoing, and in the coming years we’re likely to see new interventions. But for now, what we have in our treatment arsenal is the same evidenced-based treatments for anxiety and depression that we have in patients who don’t have long COVID.
For example, if a patient meets the clinical criteria for a major depressive episode or an anxiety disorder and they have long COVID, treatment would involve things like antidepressants and cognitive-behavioral therapy. Experts may also recommend a grated, gradual increase in physical activity in some patients with long COVID–associated depression.
As a result of the number of people who got COVID, is there now an epidemic of mental health problems associated with the condition?
In general, we’re in the midst of a mental health epidemic as a result of the pandemic and all the effects that it’s had on society, whether or not people had COVID. We’re definitely seeing higher rates of depression and anxiety than we did before the pandemic. It’s a group of patients that need attention. We also need more research over the next few years so that we can figure out better targeted treatments for this patient population.
But for now, we know that it’s important to work in an interdisciplinary model where we have psychiatrists working in close collaboration with pulmonologists, general practitioners, and cardiologists to holistically address both the physical and mental issues and not treat them in isolation, because we know there’s a relationship.
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