COVID-19 Vaccination Is Not Associated with Psychiatric Adverse Events: A Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been a global health problem since December 2019. Vaccination has been widely considered the best way to prevent COVID-19 pandemic, but public concerns about the safety of vaccines remain. There have been many studies reporting adverse events in the vaccinated. However, to date, no meta-analysis of the association of COVID-19 vaccination with psychiatric adverse events has been conducted yet. In this meta-analysis, studies on depression, anxiety and distress after COVID-19 vaccination were searched in the PubMed, Cochrane and Embase from January 2020 to April 2022. The OR of depression in four studies with a total sample size of 462,406 is obtained as 0.88 (95% CI; 0.75, 1.03), and the OR of anxiety as 0.86 (95% CI; 0.71, 1.05). However, there were no statistically significant differences between the groups. The mean difference of distress in two studies was −0.04 (95%CI; −0.05, −0.02; p < 0.0001). As a result of the moderator analysis, married people experienced less depression and anxiety after vaccination, and in White people, depression after vaccination was lower than others. We also found that people with a history of COVID-19 infection were more depressed and anxious after vaccination. We suggest that COVID-19 vaccination was not associated with a worsening of depression and anxiety.

The Psychological Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on Adult Patients pre and post receiving COVID-19 vaccine at KAMC Vaccination center, Riyadh, April 2021

“…A recent meta-analysis conducted by Lee et. al concludes a similar finding indicating that there is no significant association between COVID-19 vaccination and depression as well as anxiety [11] . The meta-analysis included 6 studies and concluded only a 4% reduction in distress after receiving the vaccine shown in overall studies.…”

Gender Differences of the Effect of Vaccination on Perceptions of COVID-19 and Mental Health in Japan

“…Existing related studies did not scrutinize the gender difference in the vaccination effects on mental health [26][27][28]30]. Any gender difference in the vaccination effect was not found [25,29], while vaccinated females showed lower anxiety symptoms than those not vaccinated [30]. Different from these studies, we put focus on gender differences to explore the comprehensively subjective probability of getting COVID-19 and mental health conditions.…”

“…We created the dummy variables, VACCINE SECOND_1 to VACCINE SECOND_4, to capture the timing of the second shot. Although their mean values may seem quite low, this is because we set the value of these variables before the 12th survey (28)(29)(30)(31) May 2021) at zero, reflecting the reality in Japan. On 23 April 2021, as of the 11th survey (23-26 April 2021), the percentage of vaccinated individuals was 0.23% and 0.00% for the first and second shots, respectively.…”

“…The mental conditions of vaccinated individuals improved in the United States [24][25][26], the United Kindom [27], and India [28]. Meanwhile, other studies found no correlation between vaccination and mental health in the United States [29], in Sweden, and Peru [30]. However, hesitancy to be vaccinated was observed in various countries [5,[31][32][33].…”