A healthcare worker tends to a patient in the Covid-19 Unit at United Memorial Medical Center in Houston, Texas. Credit: Mark Felix/AFP/Getty

Nearly one in five people who have had Covid-19 are diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder such as anxiety, depression or insomnia within three months of testing positive for the virus, according to a study that suggestsaction is needed to mitigate the mental health toll of the pandemic.

The analysis – conducted by researchers from the University of Oxford and NIHR Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre – also found that people with a pre-existing mental health diagnosis were 65% more likely to be diagnosed with Covid-19 than those without, even accounting for known risk factors such as age, sex, race, and underlying physical conditions.

“This finding was unexpected and needs investigation. In the meantime, having a psychiatric disorder should be added to the list of risk factors for Covid-19,” said Dr Max Taquet, an NIHR academic clinical fellow and one of the authors of the analysis.https://interactive.guim.co.uk/charts/embed/nov/2020-11-09T14:42:11/embed.html

The calculations were made on the basis of roughly 70m US health records, including more than 62,000 cases […]

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