How do we recover from COVID‐19? Helping diabetes teams foresee and prepare for the psychological harms

Abstract

The scale of the COVID‐19 pandemic is entirely unprecedented. However, as depicted in Fig. 1, evidence from previous large‐scale disasters indicates that following a first wave of admissions and deaths from COVID‐19, there are likely to be subsequent waves of people with acute care needs worsened by delayed hospital treatment, and people with long‐term conditions whose routine care has been disrupted [1]. People with diabetes are likely to constitute a large proportion of those with acute second‐ and third‐wave care needs, and in many cases, management of their condition may also have been negatively affected by lockdown.

Listening to people with diabetes

“…All three papers highlighted the importance of emotional and social support; as John Donne wrote 400 years ago, 'No man is an island'. It is becoming increasingly apparent that Covid‐19 is likely to exacerbate the emotional and psychological problems of diabetes and this is highlighted in the commentary by Rose Stewart [5]. Clinicians need to be aware of and prepared for both the short‐ and longer‐term harms that Covid‐19 brings to people with diabetes.…”