COVID-19 Vaccination Is Not Associated with Psychiatric Adverse Events: A Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been a global health problem since December 2019. Vaccination has been widely considered the best way to prevent COVID-19 pandemic, but public concerns about the safety of vaccines remain. There have been many studies reporting adverse events in the vaccinated. However, to date, no meta-analysis of the association of COVID-19 vaccination with psychiatric adverse events has been conducted yet. In this meta-analysis, studies on depression, anxiety and distress after COVID-19 vaccination were searched in the PubMed, Cochrane and Embase from January 2020 to April 2022. The OR of depression in four studies with a total sample size of 462,406 is obtained as 0.88 (95% CI; 0.75, 1.03), and the OR of anxiety as 0.86 (95% CI; 0.71, 1.05). However, there were no statistically significant differences between the groups. The mean difference of distress in two studies was −0.04 (95%CI; −0.05, −0.02; p < 0.0001). As a result of the moderator analysis, married people experienced less depression and anxiety after vaccination, and in White people, depression after vaccination was lower than others. We also found that people with a history of COVID-19 infection were more depressed and anxious after vaccination. We suggest that COVID-19 vaccination was not associated with a worsening of depression and anxiety.