Writes Dionysus, Content Writer, Headline Diplomat, LUDCI.eu
As the months pass by and despite the respite provided by the approval of vaccines for the COVID 19 pandemic, the psychological consequences caused by long periods of isolation, the fear of being infected with the virus that has claimed millions of lives, and the resulting financial crisis, are becoming visible.
In several countries, levels of mental health disorders, suicidal thoughts and even acting out have increased since the start of the pandemic, a worrying phenomenon, which the United Nations (UN) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have warned about.
The UN’s Secretary-General António Guterres, on the occasion of the annual Mental Health Day, describes the phenomenon thus:
“Every 40 seconds someone dies by suicide, and it is now established that depression is a major cause of illness and disability in children and adolescents.”
“We are now observing the consequences of the pandemic on the mental well-being of the individual, and this is only the beginning. If nothing is done, many groups, including the elderly, women, children, and people with mental disorders, risk seeing their health deteriorate considerably in the medium and long term,” he said.
The UN Chief recalled that mental health is an element that is essential to take into account if we want to implement universal health coverage.
According to WHO, only 17% of states around the world are planning to increase their budgets allocated to “mental health and psychosocial support” following the coronavirus pandemic. In a survey of 130 countries published in early October, WHO thus points to the “devastating impact” of Covid-19 on access to mental health services and underlines the “urgent need” to increase their funding.
Disturbing figures
The symptoms of this psychological “third wave” are still difficult to measure. Chronic fatigue, anxiety, stress, social phobia, depression, and more. It is not easy to understand the impact of the many current upheavals in a situation made up of contradictory injunctions and graduated restrictions, where data on the subject is still lacking. Certain signs, however, are not mistaken.
US
In the United States, the anxiety rate nationwide tripled in the second quarter, from 8.1% to 25.5%, compared to the same period in 2019, according to the Center for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC). That of depression has even quadrupled from 6.5% in 2019 to 24.3% at the end of 2020.
Another indicator, undoubtedly less precise, but which was published by some American researchers in an article for the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, has shown that, across the Atlantic, the number of Google searches containing the terms “anxiety attack”, “panic attack,” “signs of an anxiety attack,” “anxiety attack symptoms” has jumped in recent months.
Equally concerning is when the CDC interviewed a representative sample of 5,400 people in the summer of 2020. 11% of them responded saying they “seriously considered suicide in the past month”. This figure is twice the figure for the same period in 2018. Among young people aged 18 to 24, this proportion even reaches the dizzying level of one in four people. And elsewhere in the world, the number of depression, mental illnesses, and suicide cases recorded have increased: from Japan to Korea, UK, to Spain.
UK
A similar finding was made in the United Kingdom, where the level of depression measured among adults in the country has practically increased, according to the BBC.
A study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry focused on the period of March 31 and May 11 in 2020 and more than 3,000 adults were surveyed in the country, with a range of mental health problems such as depression, loneliness, self-harm, and suicide attempts considered.
The study found a creeping rise in suicidal thoughts. According to the publication, “the study found suicidal thoughts increased from 8% to 10% and they were highest among young adults (18-29 years), rising from 12.5% to 14%.”
South Korea
Even the nations that have been able to contain the spread of the virus with much more success than in the West are not immune. In South Korea, for example, 40% of Seoulites out of a sample of around 4,000 people say they have suffered from “deteriorated” mental health from the start of the pandemic. The cause, according to the testimonies collected by the city hall of Seoul, is due to “a lack of social interactions”, “fear of unemployment or even the lethargy of everyday life”.
Japan
Despite a steady decrease in the suicide rate since 2010 in Japan, the country is recording a new upward trend in cases of depression and suicide in the face of the consequences of the pandemic.
According to government figures, the suicide rate soared 15.4% in August, with 1,854 deaths.
Spain and frontline workers
The psychological effects in health care professionals in the frontline of the fight against the fight are even more serious.
Now, a survey that included 9,138 professionals from 18 Spanish health centers has concluded that almost half of them (45%) had a high risk of suffering a mental disorder during the first wave of the pandemic.
In the research, which was carried out by the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM), the Network Center for Epidemiology and Public Health (CIBERESP), and the Mental Health Center (CIBERSAM), 80% of the health workers surveyed had performed work related to the care of COVID-19 patients and 43% were in contact with them almost the entire time of their working day.
3.5% of the health workers in the study had suicidal ideation during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and 0.1% attempted suicide.
Of the more than 9,000 medical professionals consulted by the study, 17.4% were infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus and 112 of them needed to be admitted.
“A feeling of anxiety has stayed with me all this time. I have been overcoming it with the help of my family, talking with other colleagues,” said Spanish nurse, Ricardo Belmonte, 50, of the intensive care unit of Barcelona’s Ball d’Hebron Hospital.
Regarding the pathologies, 28.1% of the participants presented depression, 25% panic, 22.5% anxiety, 22.2% post-traumatic stress, and slightly more than 6% presented substance abuse. Also, those who declared having had a psychological disorder before the pandemic had twice the risk of suffering it again.
What makes it worse for frontline workers is that these professionals see the admittance of psychological problems as a weakness.
“People, including (health) workers, have difficulties admitting having a psychological problem because they consider it a weakness, a personal fault,” said Eduard Vieta, head of psychiatry and psychology at Barcelona’s Hospital Clinic, which was also included in the study.
The stress of COVID-19 will “trigger or worsen OCD” – Steven Taylor
Nothing is surprising for the psychologist, Steven Taylor, the author of the book “The Psychology of Pandemics: Preparing for the Next Global Outbreak of Infectious Disease“, published a few weeks before the discovery of the SARS-CoV-2.
This specialist argues that “For people with a genetic predisposition toward some forms of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, the stress of COVID-19 is likely to trigger or worsen OCD,” he says, as published by the BBC. “Some of these people will become chronic germaphobes unless they receive appropriate mental health treatment.”
According to him, “for an unfortunate minority of people, perhaps 10 to 15%, life will not return to normal”, due to the impact of the pandemic.
Professor at British Columbia University in Vancouver, Canada, this specialist considers that the development of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is also one of the possible consequences, in the longer term, of this situation.
Based on studies carried out on the psychological impact of natural disasters (floods, hurricanes, earthquakes), he estimates that approximately “10% of people affected by this type of event generally develop serious psychological problems, such as mood, anxiety or PTSD disorders”, and that it could be “even more during or after this pandemic”.
“If coronavirus is anything like Sars, this percentage could be substantially higher among those infected with the virus. A number of people who had been hospitalized with Sars in 2003 later developed PTSD,” he said. “A four-year follow-up study of 70 Sars survivors found that 44% of people developed the disorder. Even after recovering from Sars, 82% of these people had PTSD years later.”
Humor as a catharsis
However, on social networks, since the explosion of the epidemic on a global scale, a whole series of memes have flourished around so-called “introverted” or “anxious” people. As if the former could emerge “isolated” or unaffected by the consequences of the pandemic, their forms of sociability seem to be adapting better to the new world caused by the epidemic.
There has been a lot of talk about the fact that introverted people do better, but the scientific evidence on this is not very established. Most research and reports, such as that made by the MIT Technology Review, actually shows that introverts deal with this in much the same way as other people.
As The Guardian explains in a fascinating article on the subject, laughing at the current situation to better face it can indeed turn out to be cathartic. According to researchers, Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas, humor would even make us “more resilient, creative and resourceful”, three qualities “more important than ever” during a global pandemic.
“Some people believe this is too serious a time to laugh,” says Bagdonas from California. “But this is when we need humor more than ever. With this global pandemic, the shift to remote working, loneliness, and depression rising precipitously, many of us have never felt so disconnected. When we laugh with someone – whether through a screen or 2m apart – we get this cocktail of hormones that strengthen our emotional bonds in a way that wouldn’t otherwise be possible. Studies show it makes us more resilient, creative, and resourceful.”
Conclusion:
COVID-19 has a negative impact on the mental health of people in the general population, and in particular, on the most vulnerable population groups. The uncertainty associated with this disease, plus the effect of social distancing, isolation, quarantine, and the resulting economic depression, can aggravate the mental health of the population. The current situation also has a bigger impact on the mental health of caregivers in the frontline.
The United Nations has urged governments to increase the psychological and financial support enjoyed by their citizens, especially healthcare workers and other people engaged in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
Conclusively, while governments are more pressed on securing vaccines for their people, it’s truly obvious that no state can fight a pandemic without fighting its psychological consequences on the entire population.
