Diagnosen schwerwiegender Erkrankungen, die sich seit der Pandemie nicht erholt haben. Im Vergleich zu den Trends vor der Pandemie wurden 27,7 % weniger Depressionen diagnostiziert als erwartet. Auch bei Asthma (16,4 %), chronisch obstruktiver Lungenerkrankung (COPD, 15,8 %) und Osteoporose (11,5 %) wurden weniger Diagnosen gestellt als erwartet.

Depression is the most severely impacted, with almost a third fewer diagnoses than expected compared with pre-pandemic trends.

The King’s College London study is the first to evaluate whether diagnosis rates have recovered after emerging from the pandemic. Published today in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), it uses anonymised data from over 29 million people in England.

The pandemic had an unprecedented impact on healthcare systems around the world, leading to abrupt decreases in diagnosis rates for a wide range of diseases.

Of the 19 major conditions analysed, diagnoses of depression were 27.7% lower than expected compared with pre-pandemic trends. Diagnoses were also lower than expected for asthma (16.4%), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD, 15.8%) and osteoporosis (11.5%).

The study also identified differences in how diagnosis rates recovered across ethnic and socioeconomic groups. While dementia diagnoses recovered to pre-pandemic levels for individuals of white ethnicity and those living in less deprived areas, they remained lower than expected among other ethnic groups and in more deprived communities.

https://www.bmj.com/content/392/bmj-2025-086393.short