Management of mental health during COVID-19 pandemic is vital, and those must be associated with frontline workers and people staying at home, particularly in isolation centers and already identified as active cases. Experts have pointed out the need to pay specific attention to proper daily life. To manage abnormal mental conditions, such as anxiety, mood, personality, and psychotic disorder during the pandemic; social media, meditation, and psychological motivation with adequate diet, exercise, and sleep have significant roles in regulating some biological mechanism, incredibly immune, hormonal, and neural process. Management of mental health is mandatory for all at the time of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. We can consider all of the strategies mentioned above to treat mental health during and after the COVID-19 pandemic condition. Have a look the link: https://www.bsmiab.org/jabet/178-1618595762-management-of-mental-health-during-covid-19-pandemic-possible-strategies/
Hi MN Amin,
This is a timely article.
I am interested in it in the context of the regulation of the psychoimmune response in covid situations.
Do you have any thoughts on this? Or we may go for it together.
Thanks!
Regards
Syed
Dear Masudur Rahman,
Thanks for your response.
"Regulation of the psychoimmune response in covid situations" would be a great topic.
We may go for it together. Thanks
This is a very important issue. Of course the strategy will need to vary according to the resources of the country concerned, the extent to which it has been hit by the epidemic and the competence with which the epidemic has been managed. Incompetent management strategies and mitigations together with hype raising fear and anxiety could be equal to the effect of the pandemic itself (also of course very serious but we need to consider these impacts separately). For developed countries with competent primary care, public health and mental health systems I would recommend the following
- public health messaging must be clear and consistent. The transmission mechanisms of the virus and the containment measures must be clear and the threat level clear. Hype must be avoided and confidence built. Mental health messaging about how to cope with lockdowns and other issues must be available - primary care. Attention must be given to anxiety and depression in particular but also the full range of impacts to mental health of the pandemic. Central briefings should be issued to GPs who should also be made aware of the range of resources for people to manage their mental health (counselling, exercise, websites, diet, alcohol control etc etc). If they are expected to use only their own resources they will be quickly overwhelmed
- mental health services. Need to be available - staff must be vaccinated so they can work normally. As well as prioritising those with severe mental illness or co-morbidity they also need to provide efficient support to primary care to deal with common problems. They will need to prioritise otherwise they too will be overwhelmed
- community resources of all sorts - faith communities, employers, gyms, clubs, networks, charities etc need to be mobilised. They need to be issued with advice on how to add value in terms of mental health and support people.
For less developed countries primary care and any secondary mental health care will be quickly overwhelmed unless community resources are used including unqualified workers trained in basic conditions, faith communities etc are deployed. Existing community strengths e.g. village solidarity should be mapped and used as alternative resources will be few. However, there is no reason why many such countries might cope just as well as the loneliness and fragmentation of western societies which makes them very vulnerable in mental health terms may be absent to a large degree. These are not deficit communities - in all countries attention needs to be paid to using the strengths of the society and its social capital to resist the massive mental health threats posed both by covid and in some cases by dysfunctional responses to it.
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