After the outbreaks of SARS and MERS in the 2000s, one-third of patients receiving hospital care developed post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a study recently published in the Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine.

Now that many Swedes have received intensive care for covid-19, there may be thousands of patients who may need care and support to process their experiences, something that Dagens Nyheter reports today.

- We are currently following up patients. Feeling bad is not uncommon and we can see that there has been a need to refer people to contact with a psychologist in cases where this does not happen, says Katharina Stibrant Sunnerhagen, professor of rehabilitation medicine at Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg to SVT.

Traumatic to be numb

Katharina Stibrant Sunnerhagen is a professor of rehabilitation medicine at Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg and is part of the region's special covid rehabilitation team.

The panic when one feels that one cannot breathe can cause many covid patients to have long-lasting mental trauma, but also the experience of being sedated. For example, the patient can get flashbacks to things that never happened.

Katharina Stibrant Sunnerhagen talks about a former patient who did not have covid-19, but who wandered between sleep and wakefulness for an extended period. The woman had a traumatic memory of being subjected to an abuse in the hospital. But after conversations, it turned out that this was how she perceived it when the caregiver inserted a catheter to empty her bladder.

- You have only partially understood what has happened and so the brain tries to form an understanding of what you have experienced afterwards and then it can be crazy, says Katharina Stibrant Sunnerhagen.

Group treatment via the web

She emphasizes that most cases of ptsd are not serious and goes away by itself after some time. What is different about the covid-19 outbreak is that there are expected to be so many patients who may need support for ptsd at the same time. Something to be handled by an already pressed healthcare.

- We will work with resources in smarter ways. In this patient group there are many younger people, so you can find other models than we have used so far and may have group treatment via the web, says Katharina Stibrant Sunnerhagen.