Afzali Ahmad, Hatef Boshra, Sahraei Hedayat, Meftahi Gholam Hossein, Khaleghi Ali, Jahromi Gila Pirzad
Student Research Committee, Baqiyatallah University of Medical Science, Tehran, Iran.
Neuroscience Research Center, Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Curr Psychol. 2023 Jan 25:1-10. doi: 10.1007/s12144-022-04211-7.
Decreased psychological and cognitive functioning is one of the complications of Covid-19 disease. We aimed to evaluate mental health, cognitive functioning, and salivary cortisol levels in Covid-19 patients with different disease severities in three 45-day intervals after recovery.
258 Covid-19 patients were assigned into three groups based on their disease severity: 112 patients in mild group, 67 patients in moderate group and 79 patients in severe group. The participants underwent psychological evaluations (including Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale questionnaire, Beck Depression Inventory, SpeilBerger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Inventory), cognitive assessments (The Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test) and salivary cortisol level evaluation in three 45-day periods. Non-parametric statistical methods were applied for psychological and cognitive indicators, while two-way mixed model ANOVA was used to evaluate the cortisol concentration in three replications.
The group of mild patients became more anxious and the group of moderate patients became more anxious and depressed. But all three groups of patients developed severe sleep disorders over time. For cognitive functioning, although the results showed a decrease in the correct response rate, a significant increase in the correct response rate was observed in all three groups in all three measurements. However, the response speed not only did not increase, but also decreased in severe group. Cortisol level had a markedly increasing trend in all three groups.
Improvement of cognitive functioning was in line with the increase in cortisol. Besides, the decrease in mental health had no effect on the cognitive functioning.
心理和认知功能下降是新冠病毒病的并发症之一。我们旨在评估新冠病毒病康复后三个45天间隔内不同疾病严重程度的患者的心理健康、认知功能和唾液皮质醇水平。
258例新冠病毒病患者根据疾病严重程度分为三组：轻症组112例、中症组67例、重症组79例。参与者在三个45天期间接受了心理评估（包括抑郁、焦虑和压力量表问卷、贝克抑郁量表、斯皮尔伯格状态-特质焦虑量表、匹兹堡睡眠质量指数）、认知评估（听觉连续加法测验）和唾液皮质醇水平评估。心理和认知指标采用非参数统计方法，而双向混合模型方差分析用于评估三次重复测量中的皮质醇浓度。
轻症患者组变得更加焦虑，中症患者组变得更加焦虑和抑郁。但随着时间的推移，所有三组患者都出现了严重的睡眠障碍。对于认知功能，虽然结果显示正确反应率下降，但在所有三次测量中，所有三组的正确反应率均显著增加。然而，反应速度不仅没有提高，重症组反而下降。所有三组的皮质醇水平均有明显上升趋势。
认知功能的改善与皮质醇的增加一致。此外，心理健康的下降对认知功能没有影响。
