On Saturday, a study presented at the American College of Cardiology′s 2023 scientific session revealed that whether or not a person was infected, the COVID-19 pandemic had an effect on almost every aspect of their lives and elevated the incidence and severity of depression.

Millions of people experienced stress and loneliness due to quarantining, social exclusion, societal disturbances, and an ever-changing, unpredictable landscape of laws, limitations, and variances that affected their mental health.

Researchers from Intermountain Health in Salt Lake City studied over 136,000 patients, and they discovered that depressive symptoms and depression severity were significant in all study participants, regardless of whether they had COVID-19 infection or not. Dr. Heidi T. May, a cardiovascular epidemiologist at Intermountain Health and the studys lead author, stated that it made no difference whether a patient tested positive or not for the virus, as her team discovered rising depression rates and severity levels.

In the study, more than half of all patients reported experiencing clinically relevant depressive symptoms during the pandemic, which showed that depression symptoms increased dramatically throughout the outbreak. Also, the researchers discovered that roughly 45% of patients had a history of depression before the epidemic.

Additionally, from the start of 2021, the percentage of patients displaying at least a mild form of depression increased to 55%.

(Source: https://www.daijiworld.com/news/newsDisplay?newsID=1056845 )