Browsing by Author "Skogster, Annika"

Objective: Some of those who have been infected by COVID-19 develop long-term symptoms. WHO defines the post COVID-19 condition as appearing typically within 3 months from the infection and lasting at least 2 months. The COVID-19 pandemic is known to have globally weakened the mental health of the population and there tends to be mental health symptoms during the acute phase of the disease as well. The aim of this study was to investigate, how long-term COVID-19 symptoms associate with mental health of the patients. The depression and anxiety levels perceived 6 months after the acute phase were compared between patients suffering from long-term COVID-19 symptoms and patients without any long-term symptoms. Methods: The data were gathered as a part of the RECOVID-research project organized by University of Helsinki and HUS Helsinki University Hospital. The data of this study consists of 140 patients who had COVID-19 with differing required levels of care in the acute phase of the infection. These levels of care were either intensive care, regular hospital care or no hospital care. The patients were divided into two groups based on whether there appeared any long-term COVID-19 symptoms after 3 months from the acute phase (37.1%, average age 56.2 years), or not (62.9%, average age 52.7 years). The connection between observed long-term COVID-19 symptoms after 3 months from the acute phase and observed depression and anxiety at the 6-month time point were analysed with a general linear model. Results and conclusions: Mood related symptoms and long-term COVID-19 symptoms perceived 3 months after the acute illness were associated with more symptoms of depression and anxiety when 6 months had passed after the acute phase. Furthermore, increased age was found to have a statistically significant association with to less severe levels of anxiety at 6 months. However, the levels of care required during the acute phase did not associate with depression and anxiety at the 6-month time point. In line with previous studies, long-term COVID-19 symptoms were associated with prevalence of depression and anxiety symptoms. More research is needed to investigate the causes and the length of these symptoms for developing the mental health services provided to COVID-19 patients.