The changes in psychological symptoms of COVID-19 patients after "re-positive"

Xing Wang; Qinyi Fan; Yunyue Li; Junjian Xiao; Yanyan Huang; Tiantian Guo; Hongguang Chen; Mengqian Li

doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2022.1010004

The changes in psychological symptoms of COVID-19 patients after "re-positive"

Front Psychiatry. 2022 Oct 10:13:1010004. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2022.1010004. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Xing Wang^{1

2}, Qinyi Fan³, Yunyue Li⁴, Junjian Xiao⁵, Yanyan Huang⁵, Tiantian Guo⁵, Hongguang Chen⁶, Mengqian Li⁷

Affiliations

¹ School of Life Sciences, Nanchang University, Nanchang, China.
² Clinical Medical Experiment Center, Nanchang University, Nanchang, China.
³ The First Psychiatric Hospital of Harbin, Harbin, China.
⁴ Queen Mary College, Nanchang University, Nanchang, China.
⁵ Department of Psychosomatic Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Nanchang, China.
⁶ NHC Key Laboratory of Mental Health (Peking University), Peking University Sixth Hospital, National Clinical Research Center for Mental Disorders, Peking University Institute of Mental Health, Beijing, China.
⁷ Department of Psychosomatic Medicine, Gao Xin Hospital of The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Nanchang, China.

Abstract

Background: Previous studies have showed that individuals infected with COVID-19 were more likely to report psychological symptoms. However, little is known about the changes from testing positive to negative to positive again.

Methods: This survey was conducted through the questionnaires including the 7-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD-7), the 9-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), as well as the Self-Rating Scale of Sleep (SRSS) to explore the psychological status of COVID-19 and re-positive cases.″re-positive″ is defined as a positive RT-PCR test at any time during the recovery period after testing negative.

Results: A total of 94 COVID-19 patients presented the prevalence rates of anxiety, depression, insomnia, and any of the three psychological symptoms being 26.6, 8.6, 12.8, and 31.9%, respectively. Among these, 32 cases were re-tested positive during the recovery period, with the prevalence rates of anxiety, depression, insomnia, and any of the three psychological symptoms being 21.9, 18.7, 31.2, and 37.5%, respectively. The psychological status after re-positive showed a significant decrease in anxiety (P = 0.023), an increase in depression, and a significant rise in insomnia (P = 0.035). For those with no psychological symptoms during initial-positive, after re-positive, 5.88% reported anxiety, 5.88% reported depression, and 11.76% reported insomnia. For those who experienced only anxiety symptoms during initial-positive, after re-positive, 33.3% reported depression, and 33.3% reported insomnia.

Conclusions: Our findings encompassed the urgent concern for anxiety in initial-positive COVID-19 patients, depression in re-positive COVID-19 patients, and insomnia in both initial and re-positive patients, hence enabling targeted interventions for appeasing the psychological burden of COVID-19 patients.

Keywords: COVID-19 patients; anxiety; depression; insomnia; re-positive.