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. 2023 Jun 21:14:1138389.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1138389. eCollection 2023.

Psychiatric symptoms in Long-COVID patients: a systematic review

Mattia Marchi  1   2 , Pietro Grenzi  1 , Valentina Serafini  1 , Francesco Capoccia  1 , Federico Rossi  1 , Patrizia Marrino  1 , Luca Pingani  1   2 , Gian Maria Galeazzi  1   2 , Silvia Ferrari  1   2
Affiliations

Psychiatric symptoms in Long-COVID patients: a systematic review

Mattia Marchi et al. Front Psychiatry. .

Abstract

Objective: People who have been infected by COVID-19 showing persistent symptoms after 4 weeks from recovery are thought to suffer from Long-COVID syndrome (LC). There is uncertainty on the clinical manifestations of LC. We undertook a systematic review to summarize the available evidence about the main psychiatric manifestations of LC.

Method: PubMed (Medline), Scopus, CINHAL, PsycINFO, and EMBASE were searched until May 2022. Studies reporting estimation of emerging psychiatric symptoms and/or psychiatric diagnoses among adult people with LC were included. Pooled prevalence for each psychiatric condition was calculated in absence of control groups to compare with.

Results: Thirty-three reports were included in the final selection, corresponding to 282,711 participants with LC. After 4 weeks from COVID-19 infection recovery, participants reported the following psychiatric symptoms: depression, anxiety, post-traumatic symptoms (PTS), cognitive and sleeping disturbances (i.e., insomnia or hypersomnia). The most common psychiatric manifestation resulted to be sleep disturbances, followed by depression, PTS, anxiety, and cognitive impairment (i.e., attention and memory deficits). However, some estimates were affected by important outlier effect played by one study. If study weight was not considered, the most reported condition was anxiety.

Conclusions: LC may have non-specific psychiatric manifestations. More research is needed to better define LC and to differentiate it from other post-infectious or post-hospitalization syndromes.

Systematic review registration: PROSPERO (CRD42022299408).

Keywords: COVID-19; Long-COVID syndrome; anxiety; depression; mental health; posttraumatic stress.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) flow diagram.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Prevalence of depression across the studies and weighted mean prevalence. The vertical dotted line represents the weighted mean prevalence.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Prevalence of anxiety across the studies and weighted mean prevalence. The vertical dotted line represents the weighted mean prevalence.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Prevalence of cognitive impairment across the studies and weighted mean prevalence. The vertical dotted line represents the weighted mean prevalence.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Prevalence of post-traumatic symptoms across the studies and weighted mean prevalence. The vertical dotted line represents the weighted mean prevalence.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Prevalence of sleep disturbances across the studies and weighted mean prevalence. The vertical dotted line represents the weighted mean prevalence.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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