Another Potential Effect of COVID: Psychosis

[Eldon]

Almost immediately, Dr. Hisam Goueli could tell that the patient who came to his psychiatric hospital on Long Island this summer was unusual.

The patient, a 42-year-old physical therapist and mother of four young children, had never had psychiatric symptoms or any family history of mental illness. Yet there she was, sitting at a table in a beige-walled room at South Oaks Hospital in Amityville, New York, sobbing and saying that she kept seeing her children, ages 2 to 10, being gruesomely murdered and that she herself had crafted plans to kill them.

...

https://www.yahoo.com/news/small-number-covid-patients-develop-204642351.html

______

Uhh...yikes.

[GooooMarquette]

Almost immediately, Dr. Hisam Goueli could tell that the patient who came to his psychiatric hospital on Long Island this summer was unusual.

The patient, a 42-year-old physical therapist and mother of four young children, had never had psychiatric symptoms or any family history of mental illness. Yet there she was, sitting at a table in a beige-walled room at South Oaks Hospital in Amityville, New York, sobbing and saying that she kept seeing her children, ages 2 to 10, being gruesomely murdered and that she herself had crafted plans to kill them.

...

https://www.yahoo.com/news/small-number-covid-patients-develop-204642351.html

______

Uhh...yikes.

Yeah, that would be a nasty one. There have been a few reports published earlier.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7519695/

[JWags85]

Call me skeptical, but in the trend of ascribing a hundred and one assorted outcomes and side effects to a virus we still know so little about, this feels more like correlation than causation.

A very common "unlock" of psychosis and mental health disorders is extreme stress, duress, anxiety, etc... all of which are rampant in COVID times.  I have a good friend who got a very severe staff infection on a trip abroad and nearly died in a hospital in Asia. She has some pretty severe anxiety issues and a PTSD-esque condition as a result. The infection didn't cause the mental health issues, but the situation gave birth to them.

That's my initial read as someone who did significant collegiate coursework in abnormal psychology. The mind is an EXTREMELY powerful thing and psychosomatic reactions to infections can be daunting

[GooooMarquette]

Call me skeptical, but in the trend of ascribing a hundred and one assorted outcomes and side effects to a virus we still know so little about, this feels more like correlation than causation.

A very common "unlock" of psychosis and mental health disorders is extreme stress, duress, anxiety, etc... all of which are rampant in COVID times.  I have a good friend who got a very severe staff infection on a trip abroad and nearly died in a hospital in Asia. She has some pretty severe anxiety issues and a PTSD-esque condition as a result. The infection didn't cause the mental health issues, but the situation gave birth to them.

That's my initial read as someone who did significant collegiate coursework in abnormal psychology. The mind is an EXTREMELY powerful thing and psychosomatic reactions to infections can be daunting

That is entirely possible. But awakening a latent condition is as serious to the individual suffering it as the creation of an entirely new one. Either way, the virus will have "caused" a debilitating condition from his or her perspective. And it is quite plausible that the latent condition may never have been triggered otherwise.

[Hards Alumni]

Call me skeptical, but in the trend of ascribing a hundred and one assorted outcomes and side effects to a virus we still know so little about, this feels more like correlation than causation.

A very common "unlock" of psychosis and mental health disorders is extreme stress, duress, anxiety, etc... all of which are rampant in COVID times.  I have a good friend who got a very severe staff infection on a trip abroad and nearly died in a hospital in Asia. She has some pretty severe anxiety issues and a PTSD-esque condition as a result. The infection didn't cause the mental health issues, but the situation gave birth to them.

That's my initial read as someone who did significant collegiate coursework in abnormal psychology. The mind is an EXTREMELY powerful thing and psychosomatic reactions to infections can be daunting

This is how I feel too.

[JWags85]

That is entirely possible. But awakening a latent condition is as serious to the individual suffering it as the creation of an entirely new one. Either way, the virus will have "caused" a debilitating condition from his or her perspective. And it is quite plausible that the latent condition may never have been triggered otherwise.

It may have never been triggered otherwise...or by a car accident. Or by a severe breakup/divorce. Or by the loss of a parent or child or close friend.  Nobody is saying it's not serious or that it won't be associated with COVID to the person...but calling it a "side effect" of COVID, like some of the cardiovascular issues seems a reach.

[tower912]

Not something to joke about.   But if it were, there would be plenty.

[GooooMarquette]

It may have never been triggered otherwise...or by a car accident. Or by a severe breakup/divorce. Or by the loss of a parent or child or close friend.  Nobody is saying it's not serious or that it won't be associated with COVID to the person...but calling it a "side effect" of COVID, like some of the cardiovascular issues seems a reach.

Agree.

But at the end of the day, the debates about whether we call it 'causation' or 'triggering,' and whether or not the psychosis might someday have been caused/triggered by another serious event, are completely irrelevant to the person who wasn't psychotic, got Covid, and now is psychotic. "If it makes you feel any better Mr. Smith, you might have gotten into a car accident someday and become psychotic anyway."