Mental illnesses worsen when you have COVID-19, but not as bad with vaccination

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2024-08-22 01:00

International

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COVID-19 vaccination is still important, especially for those with mental health issues, according to international researchers. The team looked at data from over 18 million people across three large groups: a pre-vaccine group, a vaccinated group, and an unvaccinated group, and looked at how they fared following COVID-19 diagnosis. They found depression, serious mental illness, general anxiety, PTSD, eating disorders, addiction, self-harm, and suicide were elevated during the first four weeks of COVID-19 diagnosis, compared with before or without COVID-19. They found incidence was lower in people who were vaccinated when they had COVID-19, and the incidence was higher and persisted longer if patients were hospitalised for COVID-19. The results indicate vaccination for COVID-19 is still important, especially in those with mental illness.

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Journal/
conference: JAMA Psychiatry

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: University of Bristol, UK

Funder: This work was supported by the COVID-19 Longitudinal Health andWellbeing National Core Study, which is funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) (MC_PC_20059) and the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) (COV-LT-0009). Dr V.Walker is also supported by the Medical Research Council (MRC) Integrative Epidemiology Unit at the University of Bristol (MC_UU_00032/03). DrWei was supported by a UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) MRC (MC/W021358/1) and received funding from UKRI Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council impact acceleration account (EP/X525789/1). Dr Mehrkar received funding from the Bennett Foundation,Wellcome Trust, NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre, NIHR Applied Research Collaboration Oxford and Thames Valley, and the Mohn-Westlake Foundation. The OpenSAFELY Platform is supported by grants from theWellcome Trust (222097/Z/20/Z) and the MRC (MR/V015737/1, MC_PC_20059, and MR/W016729/ 1). In addition, development of OpenSAFELY has been funded by the Longitudinal Health and Wellbeing strand of the National Core Studies programme (MC_PC_20030: MC_PC_20059), the NIHR-funded CONVALESCENCE programme (COV-LT-0009), the NIHR (NIHR135559 and COV-LT2-0073), and the Data and Connectivity National Core Study funded by UK Research and Innovation (MC_PC_20058) and Health Data Research UK (HDRUK2021.000). Role of the Funder/Sponsor: The funders had no role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; and decision to submit the manuscript for publication.

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