DEPRESSION BOOSTS LONG COVID RISK
Stress, anxiety, depression and loneliness before a COVID-19 infection are being linked to an increased risk of long COVID, according to new research from Harvard scientists.
Psychological distress prior to a COVID case was associated with up to a 45% higher risk of developing long COVID, the researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found in their study.
“We were surprised by how strongly psychological distress before a COVID-19 infection was associated with an increased risk of long COVID,” said Siwen Wang, a researcher in the Department of Nutrition at Harvard Chan School and leader of the study.
“Distress was more strongly associated with developing long COVID than physical health risk factors such as obesity, asthma, and hypertension,” Wang added.
About 20% of American adults who have had COVID have developed long COVID, according to the CDC.
Long haulers experience COVID symptoms — such as fatigue, brain fog or respiratory, heart, neurological or digestive symptoms — for longer than four weeks after infection.
Severe COVID illness increases the risk of long COVID, although people with milder cases can also develop long COVID.
Symptoms, which can be debilitating, could last months or years, and little is known about which traits are linked to developing long COVID.
For this study, Wang and her colleagues enrolled more than 54,000 people in April 2020 near the start of the pandemic.
At the beginning of the study, the researchers asked the participants about their psychological distress.
Over the following year, more than 3,000 participants contracted COVID, and the researchers asked participants about their COVID symptoms and symptom duration.
The researchers found that distress before COVID infection, including depression, anxiety, worry, perceived stress and loneliness, was associated with a 32% to 46% increased risk of long COVID.
These types of psychological distress were also associated with 15% to 51% greater risk of daily life impairment due to long COVID.
“To the best of our knowledge, this is the first prospective study to show that a wide range of social and psychological factors are risk factors for long COVID and daily life impairment due to long COVID,” said Andrea Roberts, senior research scientist in the Department of Environmental Health at Harvard Chan School, and senior author of the paper.
“We need to consider psychological health in addition to physical health as risk factors of long COVID-19,” Roberts added. “These results also reinforce the need to increase public awareness of the importance of mental health and to get mental health care for people who need it, including increasing the supply of mental health clinicians and improving access to care.”