Open AccessAssociation between serum lithium level and incidence of COVID-19 infection
Author(s) -
Livia De Picker,
Marion Leboyer,
John Geddes,
Manuel Morrens,
Paul J. Harrison,
Maxime Taquet
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
british journal of psychiatry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.564
H-Index - 228
eISSN - 1472-1465
pISSN - 0007-1250
DOI - 10.1192/bjp.2022.42
Subject(s) - incidence (geometry) , covid-19 , medicine , lithium (medication) , association (psychology) , immunology , virology , psychology , mathematics , outbreak , disease , infectious disease (medical specialty) , geometry , psychotherapist
An antiviral effect of lithium has been proposed, but never investigated for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Using electronic health records of 26 554 patients with documented serum lithium levels during the pandemic, we show that the 6-month COVID-19 infection incidence was lower among matched patients with 'therapeutic' (0.50-1.00) versus 'subtherapeutic' (0.05-0.50) lithium levels (hazard ratio (HR) = 0.82, 95% CI 0.69-0.97, P = 0.017) and among patients with 'therapeutic' lithium levels versus matched patients using valproate (HR = 0.79, 95% CI 0.67-0.92, P = 0.0023). Lower rates of infection were observed for both new COVID-19 diagnoses and positive polymerase chain reaction tests, regardless of underlying psychiatric diagnosis and vaccination status.