There’s yet another reason to take the Covid-19 shots. If the Covid pandemic has affected mental health, researchers have indicated that the vaccines meant to kill the infection can also bring down anxiety and boost mental health. In other words, reducing risk of death and hospitalisation from infectious disease is not the only benefit of vaccination.
A team of researchers at the University of Southern California has found evidence suggesting that people who were vaccinated against Covid-19 experienced less stress afterward and saw resulting improvement in their mental health.
They found that people experienced a 15 per cent decrease in the likelihood of feeling very depressed after being vaccinated and a 4 per cent reduction in the likelihood of feeling just mildly depressed.
The team estimates that based on their data, it is likely that one million people have felt reductions in mental distress after being vaccinated. The findings are published in the open-access site PLOS ONE.
The researchers further suggest that their data indicates that getting vaccinated against Covid-19 does more than just protect people from infection — it also greatly reduces the fear and anxiety people feel about their likelihood of being infected.
For the study, the team sent out more than 8,000 surveys to people across the country with questions geared toward gauging how the pandemic was impacting the mental health of people in general and impacts on their mental health after receiving a Covid-19 vaccination. Data from the surveys showed that the majority of people queried have been experiencing some degree of anxiety and depression as a result of the pandemic.
In yet another study that appeared in Psychiatry Research Trusted Source last October, a team of researchers outlined the characteristics of Covid-19 anxiety syndrome, naming avoidance, compulsive symptom-checking, worrying, and threat monitoring (combined).