Psychological consequences of quarantine and social isolation during COVID-19 pandemic

January 16, 2021

Chaolin Huang , Lixue Huang , Yeming Wang, Xia Li, Lili Ren, Xiaoying Gu , Liang Kang, Li Guo, Min Liu, Xing Zhou, Jianfeng Luo, Zhenghui Huang, Shengjin Tu, Yue Zhao, Li Chen, Decui Xu, Yanping Li , Caihong Li, Lu Peng, Yong Li,Wuxiang Xie, Dan Cui, Lianhan Shang, Guohui Fan, Jiuyang Xu , Geng Wang, Ying Wang, Jingchuan Zhong, Chen Wang , Jianwei Wang , Dingyu Zhang, Bin Cao

The Lancet

Within six months of the onset of symptoms, most patients have at least one sign, especially fatigue or muscle weakness, sleeping difficulties, and anxiety or depression. Patients with more severe illnesses were at higher risk.Most of the survivors recovered physically, but 33% reported a decline in their mental health; the follow-up study showed that 40% of the patients still had a problem with chronic fatigue, being female, and the severity of the disease are risk factors for persistent psychological symptoms.Surviving women have higher stress levels. Higher levels of depression and anxiety, physical deterioration or fatigue, post-activity polypnea, and alopecia were also more common in women than in men.The study results indicate that a considerable proportion (22-56% on different severity scales) of the participants had an abnormality of pulmonary diffusion six months after the onset of symptoms, persistent kidney dysfunctions were observed, and some were diagnosed with diabetes venous thromboembolic diseases.These results support that people with serious illnesses need post-discharge care. In turn, longer follow-up studies are required for a large population to understand the full spectrum.

Huang C, Huang L, Wang Y, et al. 6-month consequences of COVID-19 in patients discharged from hospital: a cohort study. The Lancet 2021; 397: 220–32.

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