Molecular Psychiatry: Schizophrenia Increases The Risk Of Death With COVID-19 with schizophrenia are five times more likely to die from the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus and three times more likely to be hospitalized due to COVID-19. This is reported in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.
Researchers analyzed data on 1,925 people with schizophrenia or other psychotic disorders, 1,483 patients with bipolar disorder, and 41,448 people with depressive disorder. In total, 16,282 people tested positive for COVID-19, 2,885 were hospitalized and 1,081 died.
It turned out that for people with psychotic disorders, the risk of dying from COVID-19 was 4.84 times higher than for people without severe mental illness. The risk of death from COVID-19 was 3.76 higher in people with bipolar disorder and 1.99 higher in people with depressive disorder. Among people with COVID-19 and those with psychotic or bipolar disorders, hospital admissions rates were 35.8 percent and 37.3 percent, respectively, compared with 16.6 percent among people without severe mental illness.
Among COVID patients – Of the 19 who were hospitalized, more than half of people with psychotic disorders – 52.6 percent – died, compared with 37.5 percent of those without serious mental illness.