Survey of psychiatric symptoms among inpatients with COVID-19 using the Diagnosis Procedure Combination data and medical records in Japan.

Physical symptoms such as fatigue and muscle weakness, and psychiatric symptoms like depression and anxiety are considered as complications and sequelae of COVID-19. This epidemiological study investigated the actual status of psychiatric symptoms and disorders caused by COVID-19, from four major university hospitals and five general hospitals in Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan, having a population of 5 million. We conducted a survey of psychiatric disorders associated with COVID-19 using Diagnosis Procedure Combination (DPC) data and the psychiatric records of the hospitals. In the study period from January 2019 to September 2021, 2743 COVID-19 admissions were determined from DPC data across the nine sites. These subjects had significantly more anxiety, depression, and insomnia, and were receiving higher rates of various psychotropic medications than controls influenza and respiratory infections. A review of psychiatric records revealed that the frequency of organic mental illness with insomnia and confusion was proportional to the severity of COVID-19 infection and that anxiety symptoms appeared independent of infection severity. These results indicate that COVID-19 is more likely to produce psychiatric symptoms such as anxiety and insomnia than conventional infections.

Voxel-based morphometric brain comparison between healthy subjects and major depressive disorder patients in Japanese with the s/s genotype of 5-HTTLPR.

Individuals with s/s genotype of serotonin transporter gene-linked promotor region (5-HTTLPR), which appear with a high frequency in Japanese, exhibit more diagnosable depression in relation to stressful life events than those with the s/l or l/l genotype. We prospectively investigated the brain volume changes in first-episode and medication naïve major depression disorder patients (MDD) with the s/s genotype in Japanese. We assessed the differences between 27 MDD with the s/s genotype and 44 healthy subjects (HS) with the same genotype using a whole-brain voxel-by-voxel statistical analysis of MRI. Gray matter volume in a brain region with significant clusters obtained via voxel-based morphometry analysis were measured and, as an exploratory analysis, evaluated for relationships to the subcategory scores (core, sleep, activity, psychic, somatic anxiety, delusion) of the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D) and the Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS). The brain volume in the left insula lobe was significantly smaller in the MDD than in the HS. The left insula lobe volume correlated negatively with the "psychic" score of HAM-D and the SRRS. In a Japanese population with the s/s genotype, we found an atrophy of the insula in the MDD, which might be associated with "psychic" symptom and stress events.