Alliance for Pandemic Preparedness

August 12, 2020

Association of Mental Disorders with SARS-CoV-2 Infection and Severe Health Outcomes a Nationwide Cohort Study

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  • [pre-print, not peer-reviewed] A matched (age, sex, Charlson comorbidity index) cohort study of individuals tested for COVID-19 in Korea (n=122,722) found no evidence of association between a diagnosis of mental illness in the preceding 6 months and COVID-19 test positivity. A subgroup analyses found those with schizophrenia-related disorders had a higher likelihood of test positivity (OR=1.36, 95%CI 1.02-1.81). 
  • Restricted to a matched sub-cohort of confirmed cases (n=3,608), mental illness was associated with a significantly higher likelihood of death (OR=1.84, 95%CI 2.07-3.15) and non-significantly higher likelihood of severe illness (OR=1.17, 95% CI 0.76-1.81). A sensitivity analysis indicated that an alternative explanation for the observed relationship between mental illness and death due to unmeasured confounding factors was unlikely.  

Jeon et al. (Aug 7, 2020). Association of Mental Disorders with SARS-CoV-2 Infection and Severe Health Outcomes a Nationwide Cohort Study. Pre-print downloaded Aug 12 from https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.08.05.20169201