COVID-19 and Depression

According to WHO there is increase in anxiety and depression by 25% due to social isolation resulting from the recent Covid-19 pandemic. Loneliness, death of their loved ones and fear of infection, financial worries are also triggering stress and leading to anxiety and depression. Study shows that the pandemic has affected the mental health of young people and they are developing the risk of suicides and self-harming behaviour. The people suffering from mental illness are not highly vulnerable to Covid but after infection they suffer from severe illness and hospitalization as compared to people without mental illness. Researchers found that people of survival of Covid infection reported the case of post-traumatic stress, anxiety, depression, insomnia and OCDs. Covid infection affects the mental health and leads to depression, when a person gets infected by Covid-19, immune system produces cytokines and chemokines and some other inflammatory factors. Human body cannot properly control those factors which leads to nerve damage, BBB disruption impaired nerve transmission, hypothalamic-pituitary adrenal axis dysfunction. All of these are the main cause depression. Studies shows that rate of depression after the start of Covid-19 pandemic actually increased and further research is now being conducted by the researchers for getting more information about the Covid-19 effect on mental health. With the help of this e-poster we want to present how mental illness is caused after the Covid-19 pandemic.