Mental illness and COVID-19 vaccination: a multinational investigation of observational & register-based data.

Barker MM, Kõiv K, Magnúsdóttir I, Milbourn H, Wang B, Du X, Murphy G, Herweijer E, Gísladóttir EU, Li H, Lovik A, Kähler AK, Campbell A, Feychting M, Hauksdóttir A, Joyce EE, Thordardottir EB, Frans EM, Hoffart A, Mägi R, Tómasson G, Ásbjörnsdóttir K, Jakobsdóttir J, Andreassen OA, Sullivan PF, Johnson SU, Aspelund T, Brandlistuen RE, Ask H, McCartney DL, Ebrahimi OV, Lehto K, Valdimarsdóttir UA, Nyberg F, Fang F

Nat Commun 15 (1) 8124 [2024-09-26; online 2024-09-26]

Individuals with mental illness are at higher risk of severe COVID-19 outcomes. However, previous studies on the uptake of COVID-19 vaccination in this population have reported conflicting results. Using data from seven cohort studies (N = 325,298) included in the multinational COVIDMENT consortium, and the Swedish registers (N = 8,080,234), this study investigates the association between mental illness (defined using self-report measures, clinical diagnosis and prescription data) and COVID-19 vaccination uptake. Results from the COVIDMENT cohort studies were pooled using meta-analyses, the majority of which showed no significant association between mental illness and vaccination uptake. In the Swedish register study population, we observed a very small reduction in the uptake of both the first and second dose of a COVID-19 vaccine among individuals with vs. without mental illness; the reduction was however greater among those not using psychiatric medication. Here we show that uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine is generally high among individuals both with and without mental illness, however the lower levels of vaccination uptake observed among subgroups of individuals with unmedicated mental illness warrants further attention.

PubMed 39327436

DOI 10.1038/s41467-024-52342-1

Crossref 10.1038/s41467-024-52342-1

pmc: PMC11427681
pii: 10.1038/s41467-024-52342-1