Mental health outcomes in patients discharged after COVID-19 hospitalization: the case report of a male nurse in the context of occupational surveillance program of health care workers

Abstract

This case study draws attention on mental health sequelae that emerged in the context of the COVID-19 outbreak after recovery from hospitalization, even in subjects without personal psychiatric history. The case involves a 65-year-old male shift nurse who took SARS-COV-2 infection through a co-worker and that had been hospitalized for interstitial pneumonia from April 6 to April 17. After recovery, he developed psychiatric symptoms overlapping between different dimensions of psychiatric disorders and started to be followed by the Occupational Health Department of a Major University Hospital in central Italy. He reported a score of 28 at the Peritraumatic Distress Inventory and of 39 at the Self-Rating Anxiety State. He was treated with a combination therapy of SSRI and NaSSA antidepressants with clinical remission. In this case study, authors discuss the possible overlapping role of post-traumatic stress and anxiety symptoms in patients discharged after COVID-19 hospitalization that may deserve appropriate classification, treatment and follow up with the future goal to refine clinical management of post and long COVID syndromes of subjects who present low abnormalities in other specialty investigations.Copyright © 2022 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA.