Psychological and Cognitive Sequelae of COVID-19: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.
Eduarda Boufleuer, Tainara Wink Vieira, Victória Tiyoko Moraes Sakamoto and 4 others
PMID 42101066WHAT IT FOUND
Anxiety, cognitive problems, sleep disturbance and depression were common after laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 symptoms lasting at least 12 weeks, but frequency varied so widely that combined figures are not reliable individual risk numbers.
Key findings
01The review included adult cohort studies of laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection with symptoms lasting at least 12 weeks, and pooled 46 studies involving 192,158 participants.
02The modelled prevalence was highest for anxiety (0.1740; 95% CI 0.1095 to 0.2652), followed by cognitive impairments (0.1520; 95% CI 0.1110 to 0.2047), sleep disturbances (0.1353; 95% CI 0.0925 to 0.1937) and depression (0.1094; 95% CI 0.0619 to 0.1861).
03Heterogeneity was very high (I2 97% to 100%), and prediction intervals were wide, such as 2% to 73% for anxiety, so pooled estimates may differ substantially from prevalence in a particular population.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
Most studies lacked a non-infected control group, so the association between persistent symptoms and SARS-CoV-2 infection cannot be established definitively. Heterogeneity was very high (I2 97% to 100%), and prediction intervals were wide, such as 2% to 73% for anxiety, so pooled prevalence may not apply to a particular patient population. Publication bias was moderate for anxiety, and the authors said the pooled anxiety estimate of 17% may be overestimated. No formal certainty assessment was performed because the included cohort studies were conducted during the pandemic and were assumed to have high risk of bias. Many included studies were rated fair quality, and several subgroup analyses had few studies. This limits interpretation. Pre-existing mental disorders were reported in many studies with rates from 1.0% to 27.3%. It is hard to know whether symptoms were new or worsening.
Declared interests
The supplied text states that the study was linked to a research project funded by a productivity grant under process number 312850/2025-5. It gives no author conflict-of-interest declarations.
The easy way to misread this
Do not treat the modelled proportions as fixed individual risks. Anxiety had a prediction interval of 2% to 73%, and most studies lacked non-infected controls, so these symptoms cannot be assumed to be caused only by SARS-CoV-2.