Antidepressants Prescription Associated with COVID-19 Outcomes

A new study performed by King’s College London’s Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience (IoPPN) discovered that community mental health patients who were prescribed antidepressants were considerably less likely to test positive for COVID-19 when admitted to inpatient care.

The study, published in the journal BMC Medicine, suggests that antidepressants, particularly the most commonly prescribed type known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), may have a protective impact against COVID-19 infection and might be used in conjunction with mass immunization.

Researchers analyzed the clinical records of 5,664 patients admitted for mental health care at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic (April to December 2020) using the Clinical Record Interactive Search (CRIS), a platform that allows researchers to investigate patient records without accessing personal data.

All newly admitted patients were required to be tested for COVID-19 during their inpatient stay. There were 202 positive tests among the 5,664 patients. When compared to individuals who had no such record, researchers discovered that positive COVID-19 test findings were about half as common in patients who had recently had antidepressants listed on their medical record (90 days prior to admission). Further statistical analysis found that a recent antidepressant prescription was related with a 40% reduction in the risk of a positive COVID-19 test, with SSRIs being the only class of antidepressants showing this association.

Dr. Oleg Glebov, a Lecturer at the Department of Old Age Psychiatry of King’s IoPPN and lead author on the study, said, “Notwithstanding the success of vaccination against COVID-19, it has been of limited benefit to some people, particularly immunocompromised individuals and residents of lower-income economies. Our previous work shows that antidepressants may target the cell biology processes of COVID-19 infection, and the results of this study hint at the potential clinical benefit of this effect. In the longer term, cheap, well-characterized and readily available drugs such as antidepressants may help in curbing the spread of COVID-19. If our findings hold up in further investigation, it may provide some help for those left behind by the currently available strategies for COVID-19 prevention”

The researchers could not guarantee that all patients with a mention of antidepressants in their clinical records were taking the medicine at the time of testing due to the methodologies used and the nature of SSRI treatment regimens. However, they believe the link is strong enough to warrant future research in a larger sample.

Professor Robert Stewart, Professor of Psychiatric Epidemiology & Clinical Informatics at King’s IoPPN, and Deputy Theme lead for Informatics at the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre said, “For over 15 years, the CRIS platform has been supporting novel and innovative research, allowing health services to learn from patients’ anonymized records. The findings illustrate the huge potential value of this information, as this is the sort of question that could not have been feasibly investigated in any other way. Furthermore, networks like the HDRUK DATAMIND Hub are bringing together expertise, to ensure that the UK has international leadership in this sort of approach.”

Professor Dag Aarsland, Professor of Old Age Psychiatry, King’s College London, said, “This study provides further arguments that antidepressants have interesting effects beyond depression and anxiety. While the effects on COVID-19 are intriguing, we also plan to explore effects on other indications including brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease.

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