THE HOOP YOU HAVE TO JUMP THROUGH IS WIDER THAN YOU THINK –
Oct. 28, 2021 – Preliminary research has shown an association between mental health disorders and hospitalization and severe sickness from Covid. A study published in January in JAMA Psychiatry found that Covid patients with schizophrenia were nearly three times more likely to die from the virus, although people with mood and anxiety disorders were not at an increased risk of death from coronavirus infection. Research published in The Lancet Psychiatry last November suggested that “a psychiatric diagnosis might be an independent risk factor” for contracting the virus.
“Not only would it increase the risk of Covid,” said Maxime Taquet, the lead author of the study and a psychiatry researcher at Oxford University, “it would increase the severity of Covid once you have it.”
Chronic mental health conditions can exact a physical toll and “wreak havoc on the body’s immune system,” making people who suffer them more vulnerable to diseases like Covid, said Dr. Christine Crawford, an associate medical director at the National Alliance on Mental Illness. “If you have a major mental illness, your life expectancy is 10 to 25 years less than people who don’t,” he said. “We need to think about and treat mental illnesses in the same way we treat physical illnesses.”
