COVID-19 paranoia in a patient suffering from schizophrenic psychosis – a case report

The COVID-19 pandemic affects mental health, both in healthcare settings and broader society. Fear responses in both the uninfected and infected may reach psychopathological levels that require psychiatric interventions (Duan and Zhu, 2020), and physicians and mental health professionals may have particularly high need for psychological support in the case of development of stress-related disorders (Chen et al., 2020). An area of key concern is the potential of the psychological context of the pandemic to exacerbate existing psychiatric conditions and influence the manifestation of their symptomatology. Here we report the case of a patient with schizophrenia presenting with COVD-19- related delusions and hallucinations, illustrating the potential of COVID-19 to precipitate entry into a psychotic phase and impact symptom manifestation