Beatriz Schmidt, Ph.D., Professor of the Graduate Program in Psychology at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande, Rio Grande/RS, Brazil.
Maria Aparecida Crepaldi, Ph.D., Professor of the Graduate Program in Psychology at the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis/SC, Brazil.
Lucas Neiva-Silva, Ph.D., Professor of the Graduate Program in Psychology at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande, Rio Grande/RS, Brazil.
Six months after the identification of the new coronavirus in China, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced South America and Brazil in particular as the new epicenter of the pandemic. COVID-19 is the largest public health emergency the international community has faced in decades. Aside from concerns related to physical health, this also entails concerns related to the psychological suffering the general population and health professionals may experience. In order to systematize knowledge on implications for mental health and psychological interventions in the face of the new coronavirus pandemic, researchers from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande (FURG) and the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC), Brazil, carried out a narrative review of the literature. This modality allows studies based on different methodological approaches and regarding the same topic to be summarized.
The article “Mental health and psychological interventions during the new coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19)“, published in the journal Estudos de Psicologia (Campinas, vol. 37), presents findings related to mental health in the context of COVID-19. It mainly considers the experience of other countries already affected by the pandemic, such as China and Italy, providing insights on possible applications of these experiences in the national context, given the particularities of the Brazilian population. The results revealed that the fear of being infected by a potentially fatal virus, of rapid spread, whose origins, nature and course are still hardly known, affects the psychological well-being of many people. Symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress in the face of the pandemic have been identified in the general population, and especially in health professionals.
In the general population, the pandemic can affect mental health and psychological well-being, also due to changes in family routines and relationships. For mothers, fathers and other caregivers, the fact that they are working remotely or are even unable to work, without knowing the duration of this situation, tends to generate stress and fear along with concerns over conditions for the family’s subsistence. This may reduce tolerance and increase the risk of violence against children and adolescents. There is also a greater risk of violence against women during this period, in which they are usually confined together with the perpetrators of this violence, and often unable to denounce the aggression suffered.
Exposure to the following stressors can affect the mental health and psychological well-being of healthcare professionals: increased risk of being infected, falling ill and dying; the possibility of inadvertently infecting others; burden and fatigue; exposure to large-scale death; frustration at not being able to save lives, despite efforts; threats and aggression perpetrated by people who seek care and cannot be accepted due to limited resources; and feelings of isolation due to distancing from family and friends.
Psychological interventions aimed at both the general population and health professionals play a central role in dealing with the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for mental health. As face-to-face psychological interventions currently have to be restricted to the minimum to prevent the spread of the virus, remote consultations have been recommended (e.g., via internet or telephone). Although in the event of pandemics people’s physical health and efforts to fight the pathogen are the primary foci of care for managers and health professionals, the implications for mental health cannot be overlooked or underestimated. If this occurs, important gaps are generated in coping with the negative developments associated with the disease. This is not desirable, especially because the psychological implications can be more long-lasting and prevalent than the COVID-19 infection, with resonance in different social sectors.
Watch the video with comments by Professor Schmidt on this study below:
To read the article, access
SCHMIDT, B., et al. Mental health and psychological interventions during the new coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19). Estud. psicol. (Campinas) [online]. 2020, vol. 37, e200063. ISSN: 1982-0275 [viewed 16 june 2020]. DOI: 10.1590/1982-0275202037e200063. Avaliable from: http://ref.scielo.org/mdtcqm
SCHMIDT, B.; CREPALDI, M. A. and NEIVA-SILVA, L. Mental health of the general population and health professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic [online]. SciELO in Perspective: Humanities, 2020 [viewed ]. Available from: https://humanas.blog.scielo.org/en/2020/07/09/mental-health-of-the-general-population-and-health-professionals-during-the-covid-19-pandemic/
Beatriz Schmidt is professor in Undergraduate and Graduate Courses in Psychology at the Universidade Federal Rio Grande. Ph.D. in Psychology from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, with an internship at the Ohio State University – USA. Professor Schmidt received the CAPES Dissertation Award, in Psychology, as well as the Great CAPES Dissertation Award, in Humanities, in 2019. Psychologist, Specialist in Family Health and Master’s in Psychology from the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina.
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