School of Public Health and the Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, China.
Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
Glob Health Res Policy. 2020 Sep 3;5:40. doi: 10.1186/s41256-020-00168-x. eCollection 2020.
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 COVID-19, 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.
新冠疫情是 21 世纪以来最严重的公共卫生危机。这场疫情不仅对人们的身体健康构成了巨大挑战，还对感染和疑似患者、一线医护人员以及正常生活因疫情而受到干扰的公众的心理健康产生了广泛影响。在这篇评论中，我们概述了中国在疫情爆发后为提供及时的心理健康服务而采取的举措和协调努力，包括了解新冠疫情对心理健康的影响、在疫情防控工作中优先考虑并协调精神卫生服务与医疗服务、主动采取具体措施改善一线医护人员的心理健康、以及提高公众获得心理健康服务的可及性。这些服务以及其他协调一致的努力有助于中国控制新冠疫情，也为其他国家提供了有价值的借鉴，以便其在现在和未来采取积极措施，减轻疫情对心理健康的影响。
