Patients with a history of hospitalization for psychiatric disorders were tested less for COVID and vaccinated at a lower rate than the population in general, while also suffering higher rates of hospitalization for severe COVID-19 and mortality, according to a new study by researchers at Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer.
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The study examined COVID-19 testing, vaccination, infection and death rates among patients with severe psychiatric illness in Israel, and the results have been published in the peer-reviewed journal Molecular Psychiatry.
The epidemiological cohort study linked Israeli national databases including all living individuals ever hospitalized in a psychiatric hospital (a total of 125,273 persons), and all COVID-19 tests in the country, and reported rates of testing, infection, hospitalization, mortality, and vaccinations between March 1, 2020, and March 31, 2021.
The findings showed that those who had been hospitalized in the past or present were 20% less likely than the general population to have been tested for COVID-19 and 25% less likely to have been vaccinated. At the same time, those patients who tested positive for the virus were twice as likely to be hospitalized and twice as likely to die from it.
Furthermore, the data demonstrated an even higher likelihood of serious COVID-19 illness and death for patients with schizophrenia, showing that the more severe the psychiatric condition, the more likely the patient is to be hospitalized and die, and less likely they are to be vaccinated.
"This report has significant public health implications in that it defines patients with severe mental illness, particularly those with schizophrenia, as being at risk for a more severe course of COVID-illness and mortality. Unfortunately, these same patients are less likely to be vaccinated," said Professor Mark Weiser, Director of the Psychiatric Division at Sheba Medical Center and the lead researcher of the study.
"These data call for public health measures to reach out to vaccinate these patients, many of whom do not come in to get vaccinated on their own accord," Weiser said.
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