Short-term improvement of mental health after a COVID-19 vaccination

Charilaos Chourpiliadis*, Anikó Lovik, Anna K. Kähler, Unnur A. Valdimarsdóttir, Emma M. Frans, Fredrik Nyberg, Patrick F. Sullivan, Fang Fang

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Introduction The role of COVID-19 vaccination on the mental health of the general population remains poorly understood. This study aims to assess the short-term change in depressive and anxiety symptoms in relation to COVID-19 vaccination among Swedish adults. Methods A prospective study of 7,925 individuals recruited from ongoing cohort studies at the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden, or through social media campaigns, with monthly data collections on self-reported depressive and anxiety symptoms from December 2020 to October 2021 and COVID-19 vaccination from July to October 2021. Prevalence of depressive and anxiety symptoms (defined as a self-reported total score of ≥10 in PHQ-9 and GAD-7, respectively) was calculated one month before, one month after the first dose, and, if applicable, one month after the second dose. For individuals not vaccinated or choosing not to report vaccination status (unvaccinated individuals), we selected three monthly measures of PHQ-9 and GAD-7 with 2-month intervals in-between based on data availability. Results 5,079 (64.1%) individuals received two doses of COVID-19 vaccine, 1,977 (24.9%) received one dose, 305 (3.9%) were not vaccinated, and 564 (7.1%) chose not to report vaccination status. There was a lower prevalence of depressive and anxiety symptoms among vaccinated, compared to unvaccinated individuals, especially after the second dose. Among individuals receiving two doses of vaccine, the prevalence of depressive and anxiety symptoms was lower after both first (aRR = 0.82, 95%CI 0.76–0.88 for depression; aRR = 0.81, 95%CI 0.73–0.89 for anxiety) and second (aRR = 0.79, 95%CI 0.73–0.85 for depression; aRR = 0.73, 95%CI 0.66–0.81 for anxiety) dose, compared to before vaccination. Similar results were observed among individuals receiving only one dose (aRR = 0.76, 95%CI 0.68–0.84 for depression; aRR = 0.82, 95%CI 0.72–0.94 for anxiety), comparing after first dose to before vaccination. Conclusions We observed a short-term improvement in depressive and anxiety symptoms among adults receiving COVID-19 vaccines in the current pandemic. Our findings provide new evidence to support outreach campaigns targeting hesitant groups.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere0280587
Pages (from-to)e0280587
JournalPLoS ONE
Volume18
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 15 Feb 2023

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This study was supported by NordForsk (project No. 105668) and Horizon2020 (CoMorMent, 847776) and the Karolinska Institutet (Funding Strategic Research Area in Epidemiology and Senior Researcher Award). FF, UV, PS were awarded the NordForsk and the Horizon2020 grants. FF was awarded the Karolinska Institutet Senior Researcher Award. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. https://www.nordforsk.org/projects/mental-morbidity-trajectories-covid-19-acrossrisk-populations-five-nations-covidment https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/847776 https://ki.se/en/research/the-strategic-research-area-in-epidemiology-and-biostatistics-sfoepi The authors thank the participants of Omtanke2020.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Chourpiliadis et al. 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.

Other keywords

  • Adult
  • Humans
  • COVID-19 Vaccines/therapeutic use
  • Mental Health
  • Prospective Studies
  • COVID-19/epidemiology
  • Vaccination

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