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People admitted to hospital with an infection face a higher risk of being diagnosed with a range of brain and mental health conditions over the following two years, according to a new study led by researchers at the Department of Psychiatry.
Published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry and supported by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre: Oxford Health, the study analysed electronic health records from 62 healthcare organisations in the United States, including more than 1 million matched pairs of patients. Researchers compared people hospitalised with infections affecting different parts of the body, such as the lungs, urinary tract, skin, liver, heart, gastrointestinal system, and brain, with similar people hospitalised for non-infectious reasons.
The team found that hospitalised infections were followed by higher risks of most of the 14 psychiatric and neurological outcomes studied. These included anxiety, mood and psychotic disorders, insomnia, cognitive problems, dementia, seizures, stroke, brain haemorrhage, and nerve or muscle disorders.
The strongest relative increase was seen for encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain. People hospitalised with an infection were 5 times more likely to develop encephalitis than those hospitalised for another reason. However, the largest absolute increase was seen for cognitive problems, meaning that memory and thinking difficulties accounted for the greatest additional burden after infection.