Abstract
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), responsible for COVID-19 pandemic, caused catastrophic health and social effects, but little is known about its consequences on mental health. Other viral infections have been associated with psychiatric sequelae: infection-triggered disturbing of the immune system and the stressful intensive unit care can cause psychological and psychiatric complications. Moreover, SARS-CoV-2 can potentially induce neuronal injuries, leading to neurocognitive disabilities. Previous studies during the COVID-19 pandemic reported a high occurrence rate of psychopathological and neurocognitive conditions among COVID-19 survivors, highlighting the need for screening for these impairments in order to implement early interventions and secondary prevention. However, many psychiatric disorders can take several years to develop, and it is still difficult to differentiate between factors linked to the infection itself or to the global context of the pandemic. In this review, we describe the effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection on mental health, the mechanisms involved in psychiatric and neurocognitive sequelae, and the strategies of prevention and management. More studies are needed to investigate the effects of a range of factors including clinical, sociodemographic, and inflammatory predictors. These efforts could be useful to identify high-risk individuals and inform targeted preventive actions.
Highlights
On January 2021, the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2, responsible for COVID-19 disease) has affected more than 77 million of people around the world according to the World Health Organization (WHO)
Despite the lack of established specific risk factors of psychiatric sequelae, these previous results suggest that SARS-CoV-2 infection may have a substantial and detrimental impact on mental health and highlight the urgent need to establish more personalized preventive protocols
Survivors exhibited a high prevalence of neuropsychiatric symptoms, and these symptoms could have a lasting influence on individuals’ quality of life, not to mention the burden this would place on psychiatric care
Summary
On January 2021, the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2, responsible for COVID-19 disease) has affected more than 77 million of people around the world according to the World Health Organization (WHO). A study evaluating psychiatric symptoms in 402 COVID-19 survivors at 1 month follow-up after hospitalization found a significant proportion of anxiety (42%), insomnia (40%), depression (31%), PTSD (28%), and obsessionalcompulsive symptoms (20%) [22] These three studies found few predictors significantly associated with a higher probability of developing one or more of these psychiatric illnesses, such as having family members infected by SARS-CoV-2 or a post-infection physical discomfort, including gastrointestinal and respiratory symptoms [20,21,22]. In Wuhan, 40 to 88% of severe COVID-19 patients displayed neurological symptoms, associated with neuroinflammation, demyelination and neurodegeneration such as acute cerebrovascular diseases or conscious disturbance [29] These data related to ICU treatment are difficult to separate from the biological consequences of the infection, in particular the inflammatory and neurotoxic role. Most of patients who end up in ICU have had more severe forms, with a multitude of heterogeneous factors involved in the pathogenesis of psychiatric disorders
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