Some COVID-19 survivors face nervous or mental disorders for at least 6 months, a new study claims.

The most common among these disorders are depression and anxiety. And severe neurological pathologies are much less common, Lancet Psychiatry reported.

The authors of the new study analyzed the medical records of more than 230,000 patients who suffered from COVID-19. They were interested in how often they develop 14 neurological and psychiatric diseases. The indicators of the study participants were compared with the indicators of 100,000 people who had influenza and 230 people who had recovered from various acute respiratory viral infections.

Neurological and mental disorders within 6 months were diagnosed in 34% of patients who underwent coronavirus infection. Moreover, for 13% of them, it was the first diagnosis of this profile in their life.

The most common pathologies were depression (in 14% of patients), anxiety (in 17%), and insomnia (in 5%). Neurological pathologies were less common. The most common among them is ischemic stroke (2.1%) and cerebral hemorrhage (0.6%).

The study also found that patients who had severe COVID-19 had a higher risk of neurological and psychiatric disorders than lighter patients. This risk was 38% for hospitalized patients, 46% for intensive care unit patients, and 62% for patients who experienced delirium. Ischemic stroke developed in 6.9%, and cerebral hemorrhage - in 2.7% of people who required intensive therapy during the treatment of the infection.

The risk of mental and neurological disorders after COVID-19 is 44% higher than after the flu and 16% higher than after seasonal colds.