Susceptibility and severity of COVID-19 and risk of psychiatric disorders in European populations: a Mendelian randomization study.

BACKGROUND

Observational studies have suggested that COVID-19 increases the prevalence of psychiatric disorders, but the results of such studies are inconsistent. This study aims to investigate the association between COVID-19 and the risk of psychiatric disorders using Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis.

METHODS

We used summary statistics from COVID-19 Host Genetics Initiative genome-wide association study (GWAS) of COVID-19 involving 2,586,691 participants from European ancestry. Genetic variations of five psychiatric disorders including autism spectrum disorder (ASD) ( = 46,351), bipolar disorder (BID) ( = 51,710), major depressive disorder (MDD) ( = 480,359), anxiety disorder ( = 83,566), and schizophrenia (SCZ) ( = 77,096) were extracted from several GWAS of European ancestry. The inverse-variance weighted (IVW) method as the main MR analysis conducted. We further performed sensitivity analyzes and heterogeneity analyzes as validation of primary MR results.

RESULTS

The IVW analysis found that COVID-19 hospitalization phenotype was the risk factor for BID (OR = 1.320, 95% CI = 1.106-1.576,  = 0.002) and SCZ (OR = 1.096, 95% CI = 1.031-1.164,  = 0.002). Moreover, we detected a significant positive genetic correlation between COVID-19 severity and two psychiatric traits, BID (OR = 1.139, 95% CI = 1.033-1.256,  = 0.008) and SCZ (OR = 1.043, 95% CI = 1.005-1.082,  = 0.024). There was no evidence supporting the causal relationship between COVID-19 susceptibility and psychiatric disorders.

CONCLUSION

Our results found that the COVID-19 hospitalization phenotype and COVID-19 severity phenotype might be the potential risks of BID and SCZ in European populations. Therefore, patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 should have enhanced monitoring of their mental status.