Early impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health care and on people with mental health conditions: framework synthesis of international experiences and responses (original) (raw)
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International experiences of the active period of COVID-19 - Mental health care
Health Policy and Technology, 2020
Aim: To summarise commonalities and variations in the mental health response to COVID-19 across different sites and countries, with a view to better understanding key steps not only in crisis management, but for future systemic reform of mental health care. Method We conducted a Rapid Synthesis and Translation Process of lessons learned from an international panel of experts, collecting on the ground experiences of the pandemic as it evolved in real time. Digital conferencing and individual interviews were used to rapidly acquire knowledge on the COVID-19 outbreak across 16 locations in Australia, Denmark, Italy, Spain, Taiwan, the UK, and the USA. Results COVID-19 has had massive impacts on mental health care internationally. Most systems were under-resourced and under-prepared, struggling to manage both existing and new clients. There were significant differences between sites, depending on the explosivity the pandemic and the readiness of the mental health system. Integrated, com...
First access to mental health services during COVID-19 pandemic: A multicenter study
Journal of affective disorders reports, 2023
Background: The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health is complex and affects a broad segment of the population. Several studies indicate that depressive, anxious and post-traumatic symptoms are common in people exposed to SARS-Cov2.Methods: 458 subjects were recruited during their first consultation in outpatient psychiatric services between June 2020 and October 2021. Post-traumatic, depressive and anxious symptoms were assessed using the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R), the Beck Depression Inventory Scale-second edition (BDI-II), and the Self Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS). A specific set of questions was developed, with the aim of evaluating socio-demographic variables and work, environmental and personal characteristics related to the pandemic.Results: Prevalence rates of clinically significant depressive, anxious and post-traumatic symptoms were 57.6%, 63.5% and 54.8%, respectively. Female gender, worsening of relationship status and financial consequences due to the pandemic were the conditions most strongly associated with the presence of psychopathology.Limitation: The cross-sectional design of the study doesn't allow an evaluation over time of the sample. No assumption of causality can be made due to the lack of pre-pandemic assessments for the investigated variables.Conclusions: The impact of the pandemic involves depressive, anxious and post-traumatic dimensions. The investigated psychopathology correlates with several variables expressing the personal and environmental changes that occurred in the population due to the COVID-19 emergency. The study is multicentric and the recruitment of participants was held in a clinical setting, providing a realistic picture of the consequences of the pandemic in clinical practice within mental health services.
Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic in Public Mental Health: An Extensive Narrative Review
Sustainability, 2021
The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has surprised health authorities around the world producing a global health crisis. This research discusses the main psychosocial stressors associated with COVID-19 in the literature, and the responses of global public mental health services to these events. Thus, a consensus and critical review were performed using both primary sources, such as scientific articles and secondary ones, such as bibliographic indexes, web pages, and databases. The main search engines were PubMed, SciELO, and Google Scholar. The method was a systematic literature review (SLR) of the available literature regarding mental health services during the COVID-19 pandemic to conduct the present narrative review. Different stressors are identified in this pandemic, from psychophysiological, confinement, to social and work. Depending on the level of severity and the country of origin, various interventions have been applied that mark different ways of returning to normality and preparing new interventions. This new stressor has a direct impact on the mental health of the population, provoking governments, and health services to become more flexible, innovate and adapt to the changing situation. The use of technology and mass media could be an important tool in this aim. Independent of this, preparing the general population for possible future waves of the pandemic is currently the best measure to mitigate more serious effects on the mental health of the population.
Emergent Crisis of COVID-19 Pandemic: Mental Health Challenges and Opportunities
Frontiers in Psychiatry, 2021
Mental health is a fundamental human right and is part of the well-being of society. The public health burden of mental health disorders affects people's social and economic status around the world. Coronavirus's (COVID-19) negative impact on the economy and mental health worldwide is concerning. This is a worldwide emergency, and there is an urgent need for research about this topic to prevent long-lasting adverse effects on the population. Unpreparedness and inconsistencies in guidelines, lockdowns, containment strategies, unemployment, financial losses, physical distancing, isolation, chaos, and uncertainty are among factors that lead to a rise in emotional distress, anxiety, and depression. Governments' decisions affect the socioeconomic status of a country and the psychological well-being of the people. COVID-19 pandemic exposed disparities in multiple mental health care systems by having adverse mental health effects in people with pre-existing mental health disord...
How mental health care should change as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic
The Lancet Psychiatry, 2020
The unpredictability and uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic; the associated lockdowns, physical distancing, and other containment strategies; and the resulting economic breakdown could increase the risk of mental health problems and exacerbate health inequalities. Preliminary findings suggest adverse mental health effects in previously healthy people and especially in people with pre-existing mental health disorders. Despite the heterogeneity of worldwide health systems, efforts have been made to adapt the delivery of mental health care to the demands of COVID-19. Mental health concerns have been addressed via the public mental health response and by adapting mental health services, mostly focusing on infection control, modifying access to diagnosis and treatment, ensuring continuity of care for mental health service users, and paying attention to new cases of mental ill health and populations at high risk of mental health problems. Sustainable adaptations of delivery systems for mental health care should be developed by experts, clinicians, and service users, and should be specifically designed to mitigate disparities in health-care provision. Thorough and continuous assessment of health and service-use outcomes in mental health clinical practice will be crucial for defining which practices should be further developed and which discontinued. For this Position Paper, an international group of clinicians, mental health experts, and users of mental health services has come together to reflect on the challenges for mental health that COVID-19 poses. The interconnectedness of the world made society vulnerable to this infection, but it also provides the infrastructure to address previous system failings by disseminating good practices that can result in sustained, efficient, and equitable delivery of mental health-care delivery. Thus, the COVID-19 pandemic could be an opportunity to improve mental health services.
The impact of the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental-health services in Europe
The World Journal of Biological Psychiatry
Purpose: The current COVID-19 pandemic confronts psychiatric patients and mental health services with unique and severe challenges. Methods: In order to identify these trans-national challenges across Europe, an ad-hoc survey was conducted among 23 experts, each answering for one European or aligned country. Results: A number of important themes and issues were raised for the impact of COVID-19 on mental health and mental health services, barriers to service provision and future consequences. A number of key issues were reported by colleagues across several jurisdictions, even though these were at different stages of their national epidemics. Conclusions: Based on these findings, we articulate some important learnings from the early stages of the COVID-19 European pandemic, and highlight key considerations for all countries' mental health services as the current pandemic develops and for future pandemics.
Health Research Policy and Systems
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected people’s physical and mental health. Quarantine and other lockdown measures have altered people’s daily lives; levels of anxiety, depression, substance use, self-harm and suicide ideation have increased. This commentary assesses how international governments, agencies and organisations are responding to the challenge of the mental health impact of COVID-19 with the aim of informing the ongoing policy and service responses needed in the immediate and longer term. It identifies some of the key themes emerging from the literature, recognises at-risk populations and highlights opportunities for innovation within mental health services, focusing on the published academic literature, international health ministry websites and other relevant international organisations beyond the United Kingdom and Ireland. COVID-19 has challenged, and may have permanently changed, mental health services. It has highlighted and exacerbated pre-existing pressures and inequ...
Impact of The Covid -19 Pandemic on Mental Health in Society
Muhammadiyah International Public Health and Medicine Proceeding
Another health problem that has emerged as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic is mental health problems which if left unchecked can develop into serious health problems. The Oxford study shows that people over the age of 50 who are female, and those who are hospitalized due to the coronavirus are much more likely to suffer from brain and psychological complications, a much higher risk of dementia, a brain disorder condition, in Covid-19 survivors. 19. The research method used is descriptive qualitative research. The Covid-19 pandemic not only has an impact on physical health but also has an impact on other aspects of life such as the social and economic aspects of the community. From the results of interviews with the subject, the author indicates that individuals infected with Covid-19 experience anxiety, worry, and fear, even stress. Anxiety is not only due to the coronavirus infection but also the social environment in which they live which still discriminates against patients and...
The COVID-19 pandemic significantly changed the lives of a majority of the world's population. People have been encouraged to implement social distancing behaviors enforced by governments, and have experienced loss of employment or changes to their usual working environment. In the mental health sector, psychologists and psychiatrists have been forced to alter the standard care of patients without compromising safety. This article documents the experiences of the authors-mental health professionals in four countries, Canada, Russia, Australia and Japan-at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, and offers recommendations on how clinical, training, and research practices may need to be adjusted to deal with lockdown situations. Clinicians adapted their usual best practices by learning new skills and updating their knowledge base. Mental health clinicians noticed that the pandemic led to symptomatic changes in some of their patients. Most clinicians moved towards providing telemental health services, such as conducting assessments and treatments remotely. Those who continued seeing patients in person employed personal protective equipment with various impacts on the clinician-patient relationship. The dilemmas of mass quarantines need to be carefully examined, as their effects on numerous health and psychosocial variables appear to be farreaching.