Impact of post-COVID conditions on mental health: a cross-sectional study in Japan and Sweden

BACKGROUND: Due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, people have undermined their mental health. It has been reported that post-COVID conditions at a certain rate. However, information on the mental health of people with post-COVID conditions is limited. Thus, this study investigated the relationship between post-COVID conditions and mental health. METHODS: Design of the present study was an International and collaborative cross-sectional study in Japan and Sweden from March 18 to June 15, 2021. The analyzed data included 763 adults who participated in online surveys in Japan and Sweden and submitted complete data. In addition to demographic data including terms related to COVID-19, psychiatric symptoms such as depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress were measured by using the fear of COVID-19 scale (FCV-19S), Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), General Anxiety Disorder-7 item (GAD-7), and Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R). RESULTS: Of the 135 COVID-19 survivors among the 763 total participants, 37.0% (n = 50/135) had COVID-19-related sequelae. First, the results of the Bonferroni-corrected Mann Whitney U test showed that the group infected SARS-CoV-2 with post-COVID conditions scored significantly higher than those without one and the non-infected group on all clinical symptom scales (P ≤ .05). Next, there was a significant difference that incidence rates of clinical-significant psychiatric symptoms among each group from the results of the Chi-squared test (P ≤ .001). Finally, the results of the multivariate logistic model revealed that the risk of having more severe clinical symptoms were 2.44–3.48 times higher among participants with post-COVID conditions. CONCLUSION: The results showed that approximately half had some physical symptoms after COVID-19 and that post-COVID conditions may lead to the onset of mental disorders. TRIAL REGISTRATION: The ethics committee of Chiba University approved this cross-sectional study (approval number: 4129). However, as no medical intervention was conducted, a clinical trial registration was not necessary.