Abstract
BackgroundDepression is classified as a mood disorder. It may be described as feelings of sadness, loss, or anger that interfere with a person’s everyday activities. Nowadays, we are in COVID-19 pandemic. From practice after COVID-19 illness resolves, some of the recovering patients return back smoothly to their pre-illness life. Others experience different mood changes. Anxiety and depression are the most common. Those patients with improving general health, radiology, and oxygenation have different somatic complaints such as sensation of dyspnoea. Psychological support and psychiatric evaluation can help them to overcome this situation and get rid of dyspnoea sensation. This work aimed to evaluate the relation between COVID-19 survivors and depression and to how extent this could affect functional status of the study participants.ResultsThis work recruited 102 adult patients as a sample of Egyptians who were positive PCR for SARS-COV2, turned negative and free of symptoms for 1 month or more which include physicians, nurses, employees, and literate health care workers of Ain Shams University hospitals attending chest outpatient clinic for follow-up. The majority were 47.1% in age group (35–55 years), sixty two (60.8%) participants were females, 74.5% had high education, and 24.5% were smokers. The most frequent symptom reported by study participants as the most annoying COVID-19 symptom was fever (32.4%). Beck depression inventory score showed that 59 (57.8%) participants had no depression, 24 (23.5%) had mild depression, 16 (15.7%) had moderate depression, and only 3 (2.9%) participants had severe depression. Logistic regression analysis was done to measure effect of steroid use and grade of dyspnoea on development of moderate or severe post-COVID depression and showed that higher grades of dyspnoea were associated with higher probability of development of moderate or severe post-COVID depression (p value < 0.05).ConclusionAs predicted, COVID-19 survivors presented a high prevalence of psychiatric sequelae. Age, sex, and education level were important association factors. Higher educational level was associated with higher score of depression due to increased awareness of the current pandemic issue. Steroids’ use was proposed as a cause of depression since the majority of moderate or severe depression group were on steroids. Higher grades of dyspnoea were associated with higher probability of development of moderate or severe post-COVID depression. It is suggested that COVID-19 survivors should be assessed, to properly diagnose and treat any psychiatric conditions, to reduce the disease burden.
Highlights
Depression is classified as a mood disorder
No significant difference was found between two groups except for gender (68.4% of moderate or severe depression group were males and 67.5% of no or mild depression group were females) (P value < 0.01), education level 47.4% of moderate or severe depression group received higher education) (p value < 0.01), steroid use (89.5% of moderate or severe depression group were using steroids compared to only 45.8% of no or mild depression group) (p value < 0.01), and dyspnoea score (84.2% of moderate or severe depression group hade grade 2 dyspnoea compared to 36.1% of no or mild depression group) (p value < 0.01) (Table 2)
Logistic regression analysis was done to measure effect of steroid use and grade of dyspnoea on development of moderate or severe post-COVID depression and showed that higher grades of dyspnoea were associated with higher probability of development of moderate or severe post-COVID depression (p value < 0.05) (Table 3)
Summary
Depression is classified as a mood disorder. It may be described as feelings of sadness, loss, or anger that interfere with a person’s everyday activities. Anxiety and depression are the most common. Those patients with improving general health, radiology, and oxygenation have different somatic complaints such as sensation of dyspnoea. This work aimed to evaluate the relation between COVID-19 survivors and depression and to how extent this could affect functional status of the study participants. Depression is classified as a mood disorder. It may be described as feelings of sadness, loss, or anger that interfere with a person’s everyday activities. Quarantine time alone is a major factor in post-COVID depression
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
