Pajor, Patrycja · Postepy psychiatrii neurologii · 2021 · DOI
This article examines how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected people's mental health and what psychiatrists are learning. Beyond fears about getting sick, the pandemic has caused widespread anxiety, depression, and fatigue—including chronic fatigue syndrome—partly due to isolation, job loss, and uncertainty about the future. The authors discuss which groups are most vulnerable and what new challenges mental health professionals face.
For ME/CFS patients and researchers, this article is important because it highlights chronic fatigue syndrome as a documented psychiatric and psychological consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic. It acknowledges the interplay between infectious disease, psychological stress, and post-viral conditions, which is directly relevant to understanding ME/CFS pathogenesis and recognizing post-COVID conditions that overlap with ME/CFS.
This review does not provide direct evidence of causation or quantify the prevalence of chronic fatigue syndrome post-COVID. It does not distinguish between chronic fatigue syndrome as a post-viral sequela versus fatigue as a symptom of depression or anxiety. The article presents clinical observations rather than controlled epidemiological data, so findings are suggestive rather than definitively proven.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
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Primary citation
Pajor, Patrycja (2021). Psychiatry in the time of the pandemic. Is COVID-19 changing the discipline?. Postepy psychiatrii neurologii. https://doi.org/10.5114/ppn.2021.108475
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-pajor-2021-psychiatry-time,
author = {Pajor, Patrycja},
title = {Psychiatry in the time of the pandemic. Is COVID-19 changing the discipline?},
journal = {Postepy psychiatrii neurologii},
year = {2021},
doi = {10.5114/ppn.2021.108475},
note = {PubMed: 37082433},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/pajor-2021-psychiatry-time},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-29. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/pajor-2021-psychiatry-time
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