Timely mental health services contribute to the containment of COVID-19 pandemic in China
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(2020) 5:40
COMMENTARY
Global Health Research and Policy
Open Access
Timely mental health services contribute to the containment of COVID-19 pandemic in China Ning Zhang1* , Kankan Wu2 and Weidan Wang3
Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic is the most severe public health crisis in the 21st century. The pandemic not only posed great challenges to people's physical health but also induced wide-ranging impacts on mental health of infected and suspected patients, frontline healthcare workers, and the general public whose normal life was disrupted by the pandemic. In this commentary, we outline the initiatives and coordinated efforts on providing timely mental health services after the pandemic outbreak in China, including understanding the mental health impact of COVID19, prioritizing and coordinating mental health services along with medical services in the efforts to contain the pandemic, initiating and implementing specific measures to improve mental wellbeing of frontline healthcare workers, and increasing the accessibility of mental health services to the general public. Theses services, along with other coordinated efforts, contribute to the containment of COVID-19 pandemic in China and could be valuable for other countries to take proactive measures to mitigate the mental health impacts of the pandemic now and in the future.
Background The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is the most severe public health threat to people around the world in the twenty-first century. According to the information released by Johns Hopkins University, by 6:30 am, July 31st, 2020, 17,153,442 patients had been infected by COVID-19, of whom 669,701 died due to the infection [1]. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, both the central and local governments of China initiated and implemented strict restrictions and policies on limiting unnecessary public gatherings, contact tracing, epidemiological investigation, and advocating people to engage in health protective behaviors (e.g., wearing face masks while going out, washing hands more frequently, practicing social distancing, etc.) to reduce human-to-human transmission of COVID-19. These strategies contributed greatly to the containment of the COVID-19 pandemic in China [2]. * Correspondence: [email protected] 1 School of Public Health and the Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, China Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
As other infectious diseases outbreak such as SARS, MERS and Ebola, the COVID-19 pandemic induced wideranging impacts on mental health of confirmed and suspected patients, frontline healthcare workers, and the general public, such as fear, anxiety, depression, insomnia, and suicidal ideality [3, 4]. As reported by the MIT Technology Review, the COVID-19 pandemic is the first social-media “infodemic”, which amplified mental health stress among those being directly impacted by the pandemic and the general public with high exposure to information and misinformation regarding the pan
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