Impact of Covid-19 on Mental Health: An Overview.

BACKGROUND

The COVID-19 (2019-nCoV) pandemic is a major threat to public health worldwide; it has been identified as originating in Wuhan, Hubei province, China. It has spread across the globe, causing an outbreak of acute infectious pneumonia. Such a global outbreak is associated with adverse effects on mental health. Fear, stress and anxiety seem more definitely an outcome of mass quarantine.

METHODS

Keeping this pandemic situation in mind, existing literature on the COVID-19 crisis relevant to mental health was redeemed via a literature search from the PubMed database. Collected published articles were summarized according to their overall themes.

RESULTS

Preliminary evidence suggests that symptoms of self-reported stress, anxiety and depression have a common psychological impact due to the pandemic, and may be associated with disrupted sleep. Regional, state and National-international borders have almost been shut down, economies crashed, and billions of people quarantined or isolated at their own homes and quarantine centers. In this situational frame of covid-19, patients, frontline health-care professionals anf geriatric population with existing psychiatric conditions may be encountering further suffering.

CONCLUSION

COVID-19 will continue to affect mental health, which plays an important role in battling the epidemic. With the scare of the COVID-19 pandemic on the rise, it is time that psychiatrists should try to integrate the health-care services keeping mental health at prime.