Schizophrenia is 2nd highest risk factor for dying of COVID-19, after age

By Yasemin Saplakoglu - Staff Writer 11 days ago

"It is both expected but also surprising."

Schizophrenia may be one of the highest risk factors for dying from COVID-19, second only to age, according to a new study.

Previous studies had found that people with mental illnesses, particularly depression and schizophrenia — a condition that causes distortions in thinking and perception — had a higher risk of becoming infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. But it was not known whether mental disorders were also associated with a risk of dying from COVID-19.

In the new study, researchers looked at health records from 260 outpatient clinics and four hospitals across New York City, based on data published by the New York University electronic health record; Of 26,540 patients tested (around 4,500 patients were excluded for various reasons), 7,348 adults tested positive COVID-19 between March 3 and May 31.

They then divided the patients with a reported psychiatric disorder into one of three categories — schizophrenia spectrum, mood disorder or anxiety disorder — and compared them with COVID-19 patients who weren't diagnosed with any psychiatric disorder. They adjusted their findings for sex, age, race and known risk factors for COVID-19: high blood pressure, diabetes, heart conditions, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, chronic kidney disease, smoking and cancer.

Of the more than 7,000 adults who tested positive for the coronavirus during that time, 75 patients had a history of schizophrenia; 564 had a history of a mood disorder; and 360 had a history of an anxiety disorder. Overall, 864 of the COVID-19 patients died or were discharged to hospice within 45 days of their diagnosis.

The researchers did not find an association between anxiety or mood disorders and death from COVID-19. But they found that people with schizophrenia were about 2.7 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than people without that mental disorder — the second-highest risk factor after age.

By comparison, patients between the ages of 45 and 54 were 3.9 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than younger patients (and that risk doubled every 10 years of age after 54), regardless of whether they had a mental disorder. Patients with heart failure or diabetes had a 1.65 times and 1.28 times higher risk of dying from COVID-19, respectively.

https://www.livescience.com/schizophrenia-covid-19-death-risk-factor.html