The link between COVID-19 with sleep problems and fatigue has been confirmed by a new study into the impact of the virus – although doubt exists over whether infection is directly responsible for mental illness.
People who tested positive for COVID were found to have an increased risk of such issues, with a six-fold increase in the likelihood of reporting fatigue to a GP, and a three-fold increase in the risk of sleep problems.
There was also an 83 per cent increase in mental illness following a positive PCR test, although this was also recorded as being 71 per cent among those without COVID.
The researchers on the study, led by the University of Manchester, say this does cast doubt as to whether COVID directly causes mental illness, as this finding also includes other mental health risk factors like pandemic-related anxieties, and whether people with mental illness may be more likely to seek a test.
The findings were compiled through analysis of electronic primary care health records of 226,521 people from across the UK.
Dr Matthias Pierce, who led the work at The University of Manchester, said: “When we began this research project we wanted to investigate whether we could find any evidence in primary health care records that COVID-19 was linked to an increased risk of mental health illness, sleep and fatigue problems.
“While fatigue is clearly a consequence of COVID-19 the risk of experiencing sleep problems is also very high. However, we are sceptical regarding the extent that COVID-19 is directly causing people to become mentally ill, or whether those with a predisposition to mental illness are more likely to get tested.”
“This study shows a clear association between COVID-19 infection and fatigue and sleep problems,” says Professor Trudie Chalder, a cognitive behavioural psychotherapy specialist at King’s College London’s Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN).
“The next research steps will be to explore mechanisms of such associations and targeted interventions.”
Professor Roger Webb, who co-leads the Mental Health research programme at the National Institute for Health Research Greater Manchester Patient Safety Translational Research Centre (NIHR GM PSTRC), which funded the study, added: “Our findings align with those generated by investigations conducted in other countries in revealing elevated risks of mental illness, self-harm, fatigue, and disrupted sleep patterns among people testing positive for infection during the pandemic.
“Establishing the mechanisms that have caused these outcomes to occur is the next major challenge for researchers in our field.”
