Disparities in Intensive Care Unit Admission and Mortality Among Patients with Schizophrenia and COVID-19: A National Cohort Study

Background: Patients with schizophrenia (SCZ) represent a vulnerable population who have been understudied in COVID-19 research. We aimed to establish whether health outcomes and care differed between patients with SCZ and patients without a diagnosis of severe mental illness.Methods: We conducted a population-based cohort study of all patients with identified COVID-19 and respiratory symptoms who were hospitalized in France between February and June 2020. Cases were patients who had a diagnosis of SCZ. Controls were patients who did not have a diagnosis of severe mental illness. The outcomes were in-hospital mortality and intensive care unit (ICU) admission.Findings: A total of 50,750 patients were included, of whom 823 were SCZ patients (1.6%). The SCZ patients had an increased in-hospital mortality (25.6% vs. 21.7%; adjusted odds ratio (aOR) 1.30 [95% CI 1.08-1.56], p=0.0093) and a decreased ICU admission rate (23.7% vs. 28.4%; aOR 0.75 [95% CI 0.62-0.91], p=0.0062) compared to controls. Significant interactions between SCZ and age for mortality and ICU admission were observed (p=0.0006 and p<0.0001). SCZ patients between 65 and 80 years had a significantly higher risk of death than controls of the same age (+7.89%). SCZ patients younger than 55 years had more ICU admissions (+13.93%) and SCZ patients between 65 and 80 years and older than 80 years had less ICU admissions than controls of the same age (-15.44% and-5.93%, respectively).Interpretation: Our findings report the existence of disparities in health and health care between SCZ patients and patients without a diagnosis of severe mental illness. These disparities differed according to the age and clinical profile of SCZ patients, suggesting the importance of personalized COVID-19 clinical management and health care strategies before, during and after hospitalization for reducing health disparities in this vulnerable population.Funding Statement: This work was funded by Assistance Publique – Hôpitaux Marseille (APHM) – Aix-Marseille University (AMU) and the PHRC National, Direction générale de l’offre de soins (DGOS), France.Declaration of Interests: The authors declare no competing interests.Ethics Approval Statement: The authors state that data from the PMSI database are anonymized and can be reused for research purposes.