PTSD patients have lower chances of surviving COVID

Researchers from UC San Francisco and the San Francisco VA Health Care System have found that veterans with PTSD had an 8% increased risk of death if they had COVID and a 9% increased risk of hospitalization, compared with patients with the virus and without a psychiatric diagnosis, adjusting for age, sex, race and co-occurring medical conditions.

Those with psychosis were found to have a 58% increased risk of death and a 66% increased risk of hospitalization, relative to those without psychiatric diagnoses.

For those with bipolar disorder the increased risks of death and hospitalization were 29% and 46%, respectively, and for major depression, they were 13% and 21%, respectively.

The researchers tracked data from more than a quarter a million veterans enrolled in the United States Department of Veterans Affairs' health care services, who had tested positive for COVID between February 2020 and August 2021, with most cases occurring prior to the vaccine. In total, 6% of the veterans had died and 15% had been hospitalized within 60 days of testing positive.

The average age of the veterans was 60 and 90% were male. Some 26% had PTSD and a further 28% had a different psychiatric diagnosis.

Surprisingly, the PTSD group fared better than patients with all other psychiatric disorders, which also included adjustment disorder, anxiety, and alcohol use and substance use disorders.

Consistent with prior evidence, this suggests that unhealthy habits like physical inactivity, poor diet and smoking, as well as co-occurring medical conditions may contribute to worse outcomes of COVID for patients with PTSD and other mental illnesses.

Other mechanisms that could account for higher risks for patients with mental illness include elevated inflammation and dysregulated immune functioning

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