–Raddur Samaddar, Amity University Kolkata
The pandemic has been long drawn and Psychiatrists and Health care professionals believe it would cause Mental Health to be a major concern now and, in the Post-Pandemic era. While the health Care workers throughout the world are racing to provide the best available supportive care and treatment to patients, we are actually somewhere between hopeful and tired of the pandemic being in this long-drawn scenario than many of us might have not imagined. The gravitas of the situation is being felt by us at this point of time, and it calls for some self-care and retrospection into our own Mental Well-Being. When it comes to Mental Health awareness and a global Pandemic like Covid-19, we can’t deny that our faster-than-ever paced lives have hit some iceberg. We need to be aware of the individualistic as well as the community management of the Mental Health spectrum.
Being given a chance to work at the frontline at Peerless Hospital, Kolkata (Thanks to my mentor Dr Subhrojyoti Bhowmick), I sincerely feel healthcare workers are taking a heavy toll of stress on their minds too. To stand and work for hours tirelessly with the acceptance that supportive care is all that’s available at the moment takes some serious attitude and power of will to keep at it. The fact that contact tracing with a population density like we have is fairly impossible, the prolonged social-isolation is hard to bear. Connectivity is the Key. This current period of social isolation will also exacerbate the epidemic of loneliness identified by a 2019 University of Michigan study on healthy aging in which 34% of adults aged 50 to 80 years reported feeling lonely (1). Studies have shown increased delusions, suicidal attempts and psychosis in recent times.
A study investigated 1,210 ordinary people from 194 cities in China with their psychological status at the early stage of COVID-19 epidemic and found that 53.8% of the respondents had mild to moderate symptoms of anxiety and depressive, and about 16.5% of the respondents had moderate to severe symptoms of depressive, while 28.8% had moderate to severe anxiety (2). Physical exercise might be a boon in disguise at the moment. “We know Immunity is the key factor to face a viral attack for anyone of us, so we must focus on the positivity in anything and everything so that our brain does not process any information in a way, which can potentially suppress the immunological functioning” says, Dr Subrata Bhattacharyya (Resident Psycho-counsellor at Students Health Home and Hope Foundation). A study investigated 1,210 ordinary people from 194 cities in China with their psychological status at the early stage of COVID-19 epidemic and found that 53.8% of the respondents had mild to moderate symptoms of anxiety and depressive, and about 16.5% of the respondents had moderate to severe symptoms of depressive, while 28.8% had moderate to severe anxiety (2). Keeping such delicate issues in mind, we need to focus on the walls of strength and embrace possibilities for personal healing.
References:
- https://www.psychiatryadvisor.com/home/topics/general-psychiatry/costs-of-social-isolation-loneliness
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32796794/
Added Sources:
WHO Information:https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019
Genetic analysis of Rosmaric acid synthase from O. tenuiflorum using the magical molecular toolbox.
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