covid patients are more likely to be diagnosed with mental health disorders than people who didnt get infected study finds a new large study found that in the year after getting covid people were significantly more likely to be diagnosed with psychiatric disorders they hadnt had than people who didnt get infectedcreditshannon stapletonreutersfeb 16 2022social isolation economic stress loss of loved ones and other struggles during the pandemic have contributed to rising mental health issues like anxiety and depressionbut can having covid itself increase the risk of developing mental health problems a large new study suggests it canthe study published wednesday in the journal the bmj analyzed records of nearly 154000 covid patients in the veterans health administration system and compared their experience in the year after they recovered from their initial infection with that of a similar group of people who did not contract the virusthe study included only patients who had no mental health diagnoses or treatment for at least two years before becoming infected with the coronavirus allowing researchers to focus on psychiatric diagnoses and treatment that occurred after coronavirus infectionpeople who had covid were 39 percent more likely to be diagnosed with depression and 35 percent more likely to be diagnosed with anxiety over the months following infection than people without covid during the same period the study found covid patients were 38 percent more likely to be diagnosed with stress and adjustment disorders and 41 percent more likely to be diagnosed with sleep disorders than uninfected peoplethere appears to be a clear excess of mental health diagnoses in the months after covid said dr paul harrison a professor of psychiatry at the university of oxford who was not involved in the study he said the results echoed the emerging picture from other research including a 2021 study on which he was an author and it strengthens the case that there is something about covid that is leaving people at greater risk of common mental health conditionsthe data does not suggest that most covid patients will develop mental health symptoms only between 44 percent and 56 percent of those in the study received diagnoses of depression anxiety or stress and adjustment disordersits not an epidemic of anxiety and depression fortunately dr harrison said but its not trivialresearchers also found that covid patients were 80 percent more likely to develop cognitive problems like brain fog confusion and forgetfulness than those who didnt have covid they were 34 percent more likely to develop opioid use disorders possibly from drugs prescribed for pain and 20 percent more likely to develop nonopioid substance use disorders including alcoholism the study reportedafter having covid people were 55 percent more likely to be taking prescribed antidepressants and 65 percent more likely to be taking prescribed antianxiety medications than contemporaries without covid the study foundoverall more than 18 percent of the covid patients received a diagnosis of or prescription for a neuropsychiatric issue in the following year compared with less than 12 percent of