Assessment of Depression in Patients with COVID-19

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic is probably the greatest natural disaster of our generation and the 21st century with a great impact on mental health. The present study aims to quantify, with the help of the Beck questionnaire, the degree of depression in a group of 109 patients with moderate forms of COVID-19, hospitalized in the Second Clinic of the Clinical Hospital for Infectious Diseases St. Cuv. Parascheva Galati during the period: 1.01-30.03.2021. Of these, 35 patients (32.11%) had varying degrees of depression, and had an age and body mass index statistically significantly higher than those without depression. These patients also had statistically significantly higher Charlson scores of cumulative comorbidities and required longer hospitalization than patients without depression. The severity of COVID-19 and the percentage of favorable prognosis did not show statistically significant differences between the two groups. Our study reveals a lower incidence of depression among patients with COVID-19 compared to existing studies in the literature. This can be explained by the fact that our study is conducted at the end of the first year of the pandemic when antiviral therapy schemes stabilized and population vaccination began. The high genetic variability of the virus, which can determine at any time the appearance of new strains with greater aggression, contagion or with mutations on the spike protein, maintains the need to keep non-specific preventive measures and the mental tension related to this pathology. Thus, intrapandemic psychiatric disorders remain a major public health problem and require strong government prevention and control measures.