Underlying Mental Illness and Risk of Severe Outcomes Associated With COVID-19.

Background: According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, depression and schizophrenia, among other conditions, put individuals at high risk for severe COVID-19 infection. Patients at high risk often are eligible for outpatient therapies, such as antiviral and monoclonal antibody therapies, to prevent severe infection. However, depression and schizophrenia are not considered risk factors for severe COVID-19 infection at the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center in North Chicago, Illinois, making patients with these conditions ineligible for outpatient therapy unless they have another high-risk condition.

Methods: This retrospective cohort study assessed outcomes among patients with mild-to-moderate COVID-19 to determine whether depression and/or schizophrenia impacted the risk of severe disease or negative outcomes. The primary outcome was severe COVID-19 outcomes defined as hospitalization, admission to the intensive care unit, intubation or mechanical ventilation, or death within 30 days of infection.

Results: Patients with depression or schizophrenia had more hospitalizations and deaths, but this difference was not statistically significant (P = .36). Death within 30 days of COVID-19 infection only occurred in patients with depression or schizophrenia.

Conclusions: Although there were more hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19 within 30 days of infection among patients with depression and schizophrenia compared with individuals without these disorders, this finding was not statistically significant.