Mahapatra Ananya, Sharma Prerna
Deaprtment of Psychiatry, Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital and Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, New Delhi, India.
Department of Clinical Psychology, Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital and Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, New Delhi, India.
Gen Psychiatr. 2021 Jan 4;34(1):e100343. doi: 10.1136/gpsych-2020-100343. eCollection 2021.
The COVID-19 has emerged as a public health emergency across the globe. Countries all over the world have been forced to enforce nationwide lockdowns to curb the transmission of this illness, affecting millions of people. The disorder and the lockdowns enforced have resulted in a complex set of psychosocial stressors in the lives of people, affecting their resilience and causing psychological stress and mental health issues. In this case series, we aim to highlight the role of such psychosocial stressors in causing mental health problems, especially in a vulnerable individual. The first case reports the onset of first-episode mania in a healthy individual with a family history of mental illness, after the sudden demise of the patient's mother due to COVID-19. The second case highlights the onset of psychosis in an adolescent girl following academic stress due to the inability to carry on her education through online classes. The third case demonstrates the exacerbation of dissociative episodes in a child following the financial crisis in the family during the lockdown period. In low-income to middle-income countries such as India, there is a complex interplay of the psychosocial stressors due to the COVID-19 pandemic with pre-existing issues such as poverty, socioeconomic disparity and inequity of resources leading to a 'double hit' for people from disadvantaged sections of the society and individuals with pre-existing mental illness or vulnerability for mental illness.
新型冠状病毒肺炎已成为全球公共卫生突发事件。世界各国被迫实施全国范围的封锁措施以遏制这种疾病的传播，这影响了数百万人。疫情引发的混乱以及实施的封锁措施给人们的生活带来了一系列复杂的社会心理压力源，影响了他们的适应能力，并导致心理压力和心理健康问题。在本病例系列中，我们旨在强调此类社会心理压力源在引发心理健康问题方面所起的作用，尤其是在弱势群体中。第一个病例报告了一名有精神疾病家族史的健康个体，在其母亲因新型冠状病毒肺炎突然去世后，首次发作躁狂症。第二个病例突出了一名青春期女孩因无法通过在线课程继续学业而承受学业压力后出现精神病症状。第三个病例表明，在封锁期间家庭发生金融危机后，一名儿童的分离性发作加剧。在印度等低收入至中等收入国家，新型冠状病毒肺炎疫情引发的社会心理压力源与贫困、社会经济差距和资源不平等这些既存问题相互交织，给社会弱势群体以及有精神疾病既往史或易患精神疾病的个人带来了“双重打击”。
