Preexisting Psychiatric Conditions as Risk Factors for Diagnosed Long COVID-19 Syndrome Within Aggregated Electronic Health Record Data

Abstract

Objective To investigate the frequency of long COVID diagnosis among patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 with pre-existing psychiatric conditions versus those without pre-existing psychiatric conditions. Methods The TriNetX Analytics platform, an aggregated Electronic Health Record (EHR) research network containing the de-identified EHR data of over 90 million patients, was queried for patients who were diagnosed with COVID-19 infection based on International Classifications of Disease, Tenth Revision (ICD-10) codes. Patients were stratified based on their pre-existing psychiatric conditions and new diagnoses of long COVID were recorded and reported as the primary outcome. Results Among 1,180,948 patients previously diagnosed with COVID-19, 17,990 (1.52%) patients were diagnosed with long COVID based on the newly implemented ICD-10 code “U09: Post COVID-19 condition”. After propensity score matching, patients with any pre-existing psychiatric diagnosis had a 1.52 (95% CI: 1.47,1.58) times greater prevalence of diagnosed long COVID within 180 days of infection than patients without pre-existing psychiatric diagnoses. Patients with diagnosed anxiety disorders (RR: 1.64, 95% CI: 1.57,1.71), mood disorders (RR:1.65, 95% CI: 1.57,1.72), bipolar disorder (RR:1.37, 95% CI: 1.21,1.54), major depressive disorder (RR:1.69, 95% CI: 1.56,1.83), psychotic disorders (RR:1.23, 95%: 1.06,1.44) and substance use disorders (RR:1.28, 95% CI: 1.22,1.36) had higher risks for long COVID diagnoses when compared with patients without pre-existing psychiatric illness at the time of diagnosis. Conclusion Multiple pre-existing psychiatric diagnoses are associated with an increased risk of being diagnosed with long COVID after COVID-19 infection.