All good points. But just the same, shouldn't the "people diagnosed with a psychiatric issue in 2019 were far more likely to get COVID in 2020 (they say by 65% vs baseline)," line get scrutinized the same as you're scrutinizing everything else since there is no obvious means of causation/correlation. More specifically, does a psychiatric illness actually raise susceptibility, or is it more that people with underlying conditions that make them vulnerable to COVID also are more prone to also have psychiatric disorders? Personally, having both, I'd tend to say the latter is most likely. The psychiatric diagnosis itself is not likely the influencer that increases susceptibility in any way more than stresses natural effects on the immune system.
Hey sorry, dunno how I missed this comment at the time! It’s a good question and the paper didn’t provide any good clues to it. My sense though in looking at this with fresh eyes is that the simplest answer may be “people with psychiatric illnesses were more likely to access medical care in an ongoing and in-network way where that subsequent COVID diagnosis, even if unrelated, would get captured here”.
Did anyone ask the rather obvious question: are people more likely to be tested for psychological issues after ANY serious medical event? After all, mental health is a factor in recovery.
So all we would be seeing here is a higher prevalence of TESTING for mental health issues post-covid than otherwise.
An analogous issue: adverse events after vaccines. People have headaches, fevers, convulsions, etc. all the time for many different reasons. Recording these events immediately after a vaccination doesn’t mean the vaccine caused it Unless you’re an anti-vac fanatic.
Testing is a broad term. There are DSM-derived symptom surveys that psychologists (and perhaps some GPs) might turn to if routine checkups surfaced certain psychiatric indicators following some incident or another. But the ICD code data (which we only have in rough aggregate) wouldn’t tell us much there. Too much diversity across states/clinics/physicians.
All good points. But just the same, shouldn't the "people diagnosed with a psychiatric issue in 2019 were far more likely to get COVID in 2020 (they say by 65% vs baseline)," line get scrutinized the same as you're scrutinizing everything else since there is no obvious means of causation/correlation. More specifically, does a psychiatric illness actually raise susceptibility, or is it more that people with underlying conditions that make them vulnerable to COVID also are more prone to also have psychiatric disorders? Personally, having both, I'd tend to say the latter is most likely. The psychiatric diagnosis itself is not likely the influencer that increases susceptibility in any way more than stresses natural effects on the immune system.
Hey sorry, dunno how I missed this comment at the time! It’s a good question and the paper didn’t provide any good clues to it. My sense though in looking at this with fresh eyes is that the simplest answer may be “people with psychiatric illnesses were more likely to access medical care in an ongoing and in-network way where that subsequent COVID diagnosis, even if unrelated, would get captured here”.
Did anyone ask the rather obvious question: are people more likely to be tested for psychological issues after ANY serious medical event? After all, mental health is a factor in recovery.
So all we would be seeing here is a higher prevalence of TESTING for mental health issues post-covid than otherwise.
An analogous issue: adverse events after vaccines. People have headaches, fevers, convulsions, etc. all the time for many different reasons. Recording these events immediately after a vaccination doesn’t mean the vaccine caused it Unless you’re an anti-vac fanatic.
Testing is a broad term. There are DSM-derived symptom surveys that psychologists (and perhaps some GPs) might turn to if routine checkups surfaced certain psychiatric indicators following some incident or another. But the ICD code data (which we only have in rough aggregate) wouldn’t tell us much there. Too much diversity across states/clinics/physicians.
… “anti-vax” “ stupid autocorrect.