Opinion - (2022) Volume 7, Issue 7
Received: 29-Jun-2022, Manuscript No. IPJTAC-22-14484; Editor assigned: 01-Jul-2022, Pre QC No. IPJTAC-22-14484 (PQ); Reviewed: 15-Jul-2022, QC No. IPJTAC-22-14484; Revised: 20-Jul-2022, Manuscript No. IPJTAC-22-14484 (R); Published: 27-Jul-2022, DOI: 10.36648/2476-2105-7.7.139
A study conducted on 63 of 148 patients who developed Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and survived in Korea reported that PTSD occurred in 42.9% of the patients 1 year after a full recovery. Regardless of the severity of the infection, the PTSD risk was higher for cases in which the survivors perceived high social stigma against infected patients or had increased anxiety levels. Another report showed that 42% of Chinese patients who were infected with SARS experienced PTSD even after 4 years. The incidence of PTSD after COVID-19 (20%) is lower than that after MERS or SARS. Although this could be explained by differences in the duration between the outbreak and the investigation of the presence of PTSD, it is also possible that the lower mortality rate (2%-5%) for individuals with PTSD due to COVID-19 compared with the higher rates (10%-20%) in MERS or SARS, could have affected the lower incidence of PTSD in COVID-19.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, several studies are being performed on the incidence of PTSD. In April 2020, Fekih-Romdhane investigated the presence of PTSD in 603 Tunisian people and reported that 33% of the participants had PTSD. They found similar results (31.8%) while evaluating the incidence of PTSD in 898 American young adults. investigated the presence of PTSD in 2,286 Italians during the massive COVID-19 outbreak in Italy and found that PTSD was present in 29.5% of the participants. Lastly evaluated 202 nurses exposed to COVID-19 in Hubei, China, and reported that 16.8% of them had PTSD.
However, these studies included both individuals who were not diagnosed with COVID-19 and those who were. In contrast, our study exclusively included patients who were diagnosed with COVID-19 and were hospitalized, treated, and discharged. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first such study on the incidence of PTSD among COVID-19 patients. The current study has a few limitations. First, the sample size was small. Second, other psychiatric symptoms including depression, anxiety, and sleep disorders were not evaluated. Finally, several variables that could be potential risk factors for PTSD, such as history of mental illness, characteristics, and social supports, were not investigated.
Therefore, further studies are needed to overcome and account for these limitations. We recruited 107 patients who were diagnosed with COVID-19 and hospitalized, treated, and discharged from a university hospital in Daegu, Korea between February and April 2020. All patients had received a diagnosis confirmed through reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction using pharyngeal swabs at the hospital. The patients were treated with either hydroxychloroquine sulfate alone or a combination of hydroxychloroquine sulfate. After improvement of symptoms, the patients were discharged upon meeting the following criteria: No fever was present without the administration of antipyretics and the results of PCR tests performed twice at a 24 h interval were negative. The presence of PTSD was investigated through a telephone interview. Of the 107 patients, 43 had missing contact information, did not answer the phone, or refused to undertake the telephone interview.
Citation: Park D (2022) Observation of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder after the Pandemic. Trauma Acute Care. 7:139.
Copyright: © 2022 Park D. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
