Stress and depression are better long Covid indicators than physical comorbidities, new study says
Studies have repeatedly suggested that physical conditions like immunosuppression and hypertension can increase a person’s risk not only for severe Covid but also long Covid. But in a new study, researchers found that psychological stressors such as depression, anxiety, and loneliness were more predictive of Covid patients’ likelihood of experiencing long Covid than classically associated physical factors.
“Unfortunately, there’s a long history of people not taking these conditions as seriously as they might take physical health conditions that might be easier to measure or easier to see,” said Andrea Roberts, a senior research scientist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the senior author on the study, which was published Wednesday in JAMA Psychiatry. “For long Covid, obviously, then, it becomes very important to look at psychological health, and it raises more broadly the question of the importance of identifying and treating mental health issues.”
