I n a new study, US and Danish researchers report that patients who received a hospital diagnosis of Lyme disease—inpatient, outpatient, or at the ER—had a 28 percent higher rate of mental disorders and were twice as likely to have attempted suicide post-infection, compared to individuals without the diagnosis.
The study, a collaboration of Columbia University and the Copenhagen Research Centre for Mental Health, is believed to be the first large, population-based study examining the relationship between Lyme disease and psychiatric outcomes.
The research appears in the July 28 online edition of The American Journal of Psychiatry. (Read here.)
“It is time to move beyond thinking of Lyme disease as a simple illness that only causes a rash,” said lead author Brian Fallon, MD, MPH, a psychiatrist with the New York State Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University. “In addition to the risk of severe cardiac, rheumatologic, and neurologic problems, Lyme disease can cause severe mental health problems as well.”
Dr. Fallon, one of the foremost researchers of the neuropsychiatric effects of Lyme disease, is director of the Lyme and Tick-borne Diseases Research Center at Columbia.
The team of investigators on the study includes Michael Benros MD, PhD, principal investigator; Trine Madsen, PhD, co-first author; and Annette Erlangsen, PhD, all psychiatric epidemiologists at the Research Centre for Mental Health.
Team of Investigators
Michael Benros
MD, PhD, Principal Investigator
Trine Madsen
PhD, Co-First Author
Annette Erlangsen
PhD, Co-Author
“It is time to move beyond thinking of Lyme disease as a simple illness that only causes a rash. In addition to the risk of severe cardiac, rheumatologic, and neurologic problems, Lyme disease can cause severe mental health problems as well.” — Brian Fallon, MD, MPH,
Higher Rate of Death by Suicide
To conduct their study, the researchers analyzed the medical record diagnoses of nearly seven million people living in Denmark over a twenty-two-year period, comparing the mental health data of individuals after a hospital-based diagnosis of Lyme disease to the rest of the Danish population who had never had a Lyme diagnosis recorded in the national medical register…….Join or login below to continue reading.
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