Negative thinking styles in COVID-19 survivors and cognitive vulnerability

Saloni Gupta, Gautam Buddha University

Irrational thought patterns in high-level mental models used to interpret experience lead to self-deprecation, self-reproach, feelings of guilt, and a general negative outlook on the world and the self, and are a core feature of major depression.

According to the cognitive neuropsychological model of depression, distorted information processing, with a bias toward negative valence, plays a critical role in maintaining depressive psychopathology by encouraging the experience of negative emotions and effects, and is a primary target for antidepressant treatment.

It was hypothesized in the article based on the referenced literature that patients with post-COVID depression share the same mood-congruent negative thinking styles and cognitive vulnerability as patients with major depressive disorder (MDD), which has important implications in the clinics of mood disorders and depression related to medical conditions. This hypothesis was investigated by comparing cognitive measures in depressive COVID-19 survivors to non-depressed COVID-19 survivors, healthy controls, and patients with MDD who were not COVID-19 survivors.

How was the study conducted?

362 COVID-19 survivors, 73 inpatients with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), and 294 healthy volunteers were among the 729 people investigated (HC). The Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale was used to assess the severity of depression (ZSDS). A self-description task was used to investigate neuropsychological bias toward negative emotional stimuli and a negative outlook on the self, providing latencies and frequency of attribution of ethically tuned features. The Cognition Questionnaire was used to assess negative thinking and depressive cognitive style in the context of hypothetical events (CQ).

Statistical Analysis and Findings

All statistical analyses were carried out using a commercial software package (StatSoft Statistica 12, Tulsa, OK, USA) and normal computational processes. All analyses were adjusted by gender and age.

COVID survivors self-reported depression levels above the clinical threshold in 22.4 percent of cases. The frequency and latencies of attribution of morally bad aspects, as well as CQ scores, were associated with projected ZSDS scores, with post-COVID depressed patients scoring in the middle of the MDD patients, non-depressed post-COVID participants, and HC.

Challenges and Conclusion

Recruitment was placed in a single location due to which demographic stratification was a possibility.

In MDD and post-COVID depressed patients, the breadth of self-reproach and depressive cognitive style in evaluating events had the same association with depression severity, distributing along a severity gradient, implying that individual features of negative thinking styles are shared in these conditions and should be addressed as treatment targets in depressed COVID-19 survivors.

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Reference

1. Benedetti, F., Palladini, M., D’Orsi, G., Furlan, R., Ciceri, F., Rovere-Querini, P., & Mazza, M. G. (2022). Mood-congruent negative thinking styles and cognitive vulnerability in depressed COVID-19 survivors: A comparison with major depressive disorder. Journal of Affective Disorders, 308, 554–561. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2022.04.077

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