Comment on an article: “COVID-19 disease will cause a global catastrophe in terms of mental health: A hypothesis”

For the Greater Good? The Devastating Ripple Effects of the Covid-19 Crisis

“…Although tele-health and video consultation can alleviate the immediate problems associated with the lock-down, (Barsom et al, 2020;Zhou et al, 2020), there may not be enough staff to effectively treat all people that will need mental health care in the aftermath of the global lockdown (Figueroa and Aguilera, 2020;Torales et al, 2020). Next to giving the public more information about effective coping styles (Ibrahimagić et al, 2020), an interesting avenue is to make writing interventions available to the wider public, that have proven to have many (mental) health benefits (Lepore and Smyth, 2002;Schippers et al, 2015), as well as performance benefits (Schippers and Ziegler, 2019;. This type of care could even be delivered by a life crafting chatbot (Dekker et al, 2020).…”

“…Unfortunately, the lockdowns and related increase in anxiety, depression, and PTSD (Guessoum et al, 2020), and as many sports facilities were closed this related to changes in life style such as eating more, and sporting less (Di Renzo et al, 2020;Górnicka et al, 2020;Pellegrini et al, 2020). Paradoxically, functional coping styles in order to offset some of these negative effects have been blocked in some ways due to the measures and this may have led to downward spirals in terms of (mental) health (Ibrahimagić et al, 2020). These include: a healthy lifestyle, such as eating healthy, seeking support and relaxing exercises.…”

How Can We Facilitate Psychological Recovery Following the COVID-19 Pandemic?

“…Such measures reduced social interaction, leading to behavioral changes (Brooks et al, 2020;Galea et al, 2020). The unpredictable and uncertain nature of the pandemic (Ibrahimagić et al, 2020), lack of information about appropriate treatment (Shelef and Zalsman, 2020), conflicting messages from the authorities (Pfeifferbaum and North, 2020), high mortality (Shelef and Zalsman, 2020), stigma (Brooks et al, 2020) and overrun of medical facilities (Pfefferbaum and North, 2020;Thombs et al, 2020) created a mass fear of COVID (Dubey et al, 2020). "Coronaphobia" interacted with social isolation, infringement of personal freedom, financial losses and economic stress (Dubey et al, 2020;Pfefferbaum and North, 2020) to generate frustration, boredom, insomnia, anxiety, stress, depression, and other such symptoms of mental distress (Izaguirre-Torres and Siche, 2020).…”

The Impact of COVID-19 on India and the Global Order

“…Such measures reduced social interaction, leading to behavioral changes (Brooks et al, 2020;Galea et al, 2020). The unpredictable and uncertain nature of the pandemic (Ibrahimagić et al, 2020), lack of information about appropriate treatment (Shelef and Zalsman, 2020), conflicting messages from the authorities (Pfeifferbaum and North, 2020), high mortality (Shelef and Zalsman, 2020), stigma (Brooks et al, 2020) and overrun of medical facilities (Pfefferbaum and North, 2020;Thombs et al, 2020) created a mass fear of COVID (Dubey et al, 2020). "Coronaphobia" interacted with social isolation, infringement of personal freedom, financial losses and economic stress (Dubey et al, 2020;Pfefferbaum and North, 2020) to generate frustration, boredom, insomnia, anxiety, stress, depression, and other such symptoms of mental distress (Izaguirre-Torres and Siche, 2020).…”