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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Public Mental Health
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1370085
This article is part of the Research Topic Preventing Psychosis in Low Resources Settings - Insights, Specificities, and Recommendations to the Study of Clinical High Risk for Psychosis (CHR) in Low-and-Middle-Income Countries View all 4 articles

Mental and cognitive health of COVID-19 survivors

Provisionally accepted
Madhushree Chakrabarty Madhushree Chakrabarty 1,2Piali Chatterjee Piali Chatterjee 1,2Adreesh Mukherjee Adreesh Mukherjee 3Gautam Das Gautam Das 1,2Rafikul I. Mollah Rafikul I. Mollah 1,2Banshidhar Mondal Banshidhar Mondal 1,2Swarup Sardar Swarup Sardar 1,2Ayanendranath Basu Ayanendranath Basu 4Mrinalkanti Ghosh Mrinalkanti Ghosh 5Amitabha Sengupta Amitabha Sengupta 6,7Sankar K. Pal Sankar K. Pal 8Atanu Biswas Atanu Biswas 1,2*
  • 1 Department of Neuromedicine, Institute of Post Graduate Medical Education And Research (IPGMER), Kolkata, West Bengal, India
  • 2 Department of Neuromedicine, Bangur Institute of Neurosciences, Calcutta, West Bengal, India
  • 3 Department of Neuromedicine, North Bengal Medical College and Hospital, Darjeeling, West Bengal, India
  • 4 Interdisciplinary Statistical Research Unit (ISRU), Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, West Bengal, India
  • 5 Department of Radiology, Burdwan Medical College, Bardhaman, West Bengal, India
  • 6 Department of Chest Medicine, Institute of Post Graduate Medical Education And Research (IPGMER), Kolkata, West Bengal, India
  • 7 Department of Chest Medicine, Seth Sukhlal Karnani Memorial Hospital, Calcutta, India
  • 8 Machine Intelligence Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, West Bengal, India

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Background: COVID-19 survivors around the globe are suffering from mental health issues. While mental health problems can be an early warning sign of dementia, they may also increase the chances of developing the disease. In this study, we examined the mental health of COVID-19 survivors and mapped its associations with cognitive and demographic variables. Method: COVID-19 survivors listed in the databases of three tertiary care hospitals in Kolkata were contacted sequentially. 376 willing patients were interviewed over the telephone. 99 COVID-19 patients and 31 matched controls participated in the in-person interviews that were arranged for a more detailed investigation. The participants were administered standardized tests that are widely used for the assessment of cognitive functioning and mental health status. Result: 64.89% of COVID-19 survivors reported a deterioration in physical functioning. 44.95% reported a decline in mental health, whereas 41.49% reported a drop in cognitive performance. Detailed investigations revealed that they had an increased risk of having depression, anxiety, and poor sleep quality by 91%, 68%, and 140%, respectively. 6.1% of the patients had mild cognitive impairment, and 4% had dementia. COVID-19 patients who had depression and anxiety were 8.6 and 19.4 times more likely to have cognitive decline, respectively. Compared to the matched controls, COVID-19 patients had greater depression (p<.001), anxiety (p<.001), stress (p =.003), and insomnia (p <.001). They also scored significantly lower on Addenbrooke's Cognitive Examination-III (p =.009) and Picture Naming Test (p =.005) and took significantly longer to complete Trail Making Test-A (p =.002). Conclusion: COVID-19 survivors in this study had major mental health issues even one year after contracting the virus. They had significant cognitive deficits that might progress into dementia. Strict monitoring and systematic treatment plans should be implemented as soon as possible.

    Keywords: COVID-19, Cognition, Anxiety, Depression, stress, insomnia, long-term-effects, Mental Health

    Received: 13 Jan 2024; Accepted: 02 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Chakrabarty, Chatterjee, Mukherjee, Das, Mollah, Mondal, Sardar, Basu, Ghosh, Sengupta, Pal and Biswas. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Atanu Biswas, Department of Neuromedicine, Institute of Post Graduate Medical Education And Research (IPGMER), Kolkata, 700020, West Bengal, India

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.