SARS-CoV-2 vaccination may improve anxious, insomnia and depressive symptoms among Chinese population aged 18–75 years during the COVID-19 pandemic

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 13; no. 1; p. 22029
• Main Authors: Zhang, Xiaobo, Yue, Qiang, Li, Mingxia, Wu, Chaoping, Zhou, Lu, Cai, Yang, Xu, Jian
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 12-12-2023; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 631/477; 692/700; Anxiety disorders; COVID-19; Health problems; Humanities and Social Sciences; Immunization; Insomnia; Mental depression; Mental disorders; Mental health; multidisciplinary; Pandemics; Regression analysis; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; Sleep disorders; Vaccination
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-48977-7

Previous studies have reported significant decreases in the incidence of mental health problems following SARS-CoV-2 vaccination. However, less relevant studies are published in China. We conducted a cross-sectional study involving Chinese adults aged 18–75 years with no known psychiatric diseases. The study used data from mental health of SARS-CoV-2 vaccinated and unvaccinated participants from May 2020 to July 2021.Three standardized scales, namely, the
Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7
(GAD-7) for anxious symptoms,
Patient Health Questionnaire-9
(PHQ-9) for depressive symptoms and
Athens Insomnia Score-8
(AIS-8) for insomnia symptoms, as well as basic demographic questions were used. The hierarchical regression method was used for multivariate logistic regression analysis to explore the effects of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination on anxious, insomnia, and depressive symptoms. The results confirmed first that vaccinated participants experienced significantly lower anxious, insomnia, and depressive symptoms scores (
P
 < 0.001) compared with unvaccinated participants. Second that vaccinated participants had a lower prevalence of anxious, insomnia, and depressive symptoms (
P
 < 0.001). Third, after adjusting for potential confounders, we still observed a good correlation between vaccination and a reduced risk of anxious, insomnia, and depressive symptoms. The current study showed that SARS-CoV-2 vaccination may be helpful in improving anxious, insomnia, and depressive symptoms.