Wang Q, Xu R, Volkow N. (2020). Increased risk of COVID-19 infection and mortality in people with mental disorders: Analysis from electronic health records in the United States. World Psychiatry. doi: 10.1002/wps.20806
Researchers analyzed electronic health record data from 61,783,950 U.S. adults in the IBM Watson Explorys database to examine the risk of COVID-19 infection and adverse outcomes in patients with a pre-existing mental health disorder (MHD) diagnosed within the past year (e.g. attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder, bipolar disorder, depression, and schizophrenia). Patients with a recently diagnosed MHD were over 6 times more likely to develop COVID-19 than individuals without a recently diagnosed MHD. Rates of COVID-19 infection were over 7 times higher in adults with a specific recent diagnosis of depression or schizophrenia than in adults without these diagnoses. Among patients with both a recently diagnosed MHD and COVID-19, rates of death and hospitalization were 81% and 47% higher, respectively, than among COVID-19 patients without a recently diagnosed MHD (hospitalization: 27.4% vs. 18.6%, death: 8.5% vs. 4.7%). There were also risk disparities for COVID-19 infection based on race/ethnicity and gender. African Americans with depression were almost 4 times more likely than Caucasian Americans with depression to develop COVID-19. Rates of hospitalization were 30.1% higher in African Americans with COVID-19 and a recently diagnosed MHD than in Caucasian Americans with the same diagnoses (hospitalization: 33.6% vs. 24.8%). Among individuals with a recently diagnosed MHD, women were 150% more likely than men to develop COVID-19, but rates of death and hospitalization were 60% and 43% higher, respectively, in men (mortality: 12.5% vs. 6.7%, hospitalization: 36.5% vs 23.5%). Results demonstrate the importance of screening and treating individuals with a recently diagnosed mental health disorder for COVID-19 infection.