Now, medical experts are raising concern over COVID-19 survivors developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that could affect them for years—and that the medical community should be prepared to deal with the care demands it will create.
Administrators from Britain’s National Health Service have begun issuing calls for all physicians to automatically screen COVID-19 patients for PTSD before being discharged from the hospital.
The calls for post-hospitalized treatment of PTSD in coronavirus survivors was also echoed in a recently published report in the medical journal Global Health Research and Policy.
The study looked at the case rates of PTSD in survivors of previous disease outbreaks, including the 2003 SARS outbreak, H1N1 flu epidemic of 2009, and the Ebola outbreak of 2015, finding that “epidemiological studies have demonstrated a rather high prevalence of mental health problems among survivors, victim families, medical professionals, and the general public after an epidemic of infectious disease.”
The authors conclude the study by saying “we believe it urgent to provide mental health service targeted at prevention of PTSD to survivors and other people exposed to COVID-19.”
