Mental health and psychosocial well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic: the invisible elephant in the room
Open accessAbstract
The novel SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus pandemic has emerged as a truly formidable threat to humankind’s existence. In the wake of the massively volatile global situation created by COVID-19, it is vital to recognize that the trauma it causes can affect people in different ways, at the individual and collective levels, resulting in mental health challenges for many. Although mental health problems account for about one-third of the world’s disability among adults, these issues tend to be under-addressed and overlooked in society and are closely associated with deadly disease outbreaks. In large scale outbreaks, the mental health problems experienced are not limited to infected persons but also extend to involve frontline health workers and community members alike. While it is crucial to limit the spread of infections during an outbreak, previous experience suggests that mental and behavioural health interventions should be fully included in public health response strategies.
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Both the COVID-19 outbreak and the ensuing preventative measures have had a deep impact on mental health worldwide.
“Both the outbreak itself and the ensuing preventative measures have had a deep impact on the mental health of thousands of millions of people all over the world (Luykx et al., 2020; Otu et al., 2020; Shigemura et al., 2020; Wang et al., 2020).”
From Feasibility of a Brief Online Mindfulness and Compassion-Based Intervention to Promote Mental Health Among University Students During the COVID-19 Pandemic (2021) · cites this paper as Otu et al., 2020
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Cites
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- Authors
- Otu, A., Charles, C. H., & Yaya, S.
- Affiliations
- Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (GB)
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- University of Ottawa (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Yaya, Sanni
- Venue
- International Journal of Mental Health Systems
- Published
- 2020-05-28
- Volume
- 14
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 38-38
- ISSN
- 1752-4458 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC7257210
- OpenAlex
- W3029144977
- Cited by
- 181
- References
- 16
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 21 · 2023: 29 · 2022: 42 · 2021: 61 · 2020: 14 · 2019: 1
- FWCI
- 14.58
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- International Journal of Mental Health Systems (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Informationszentrum Lebenswissenschaften (ZB MED) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- uO Research (University of Ottawa) (submittedVersion, public-domain)
- Funders
- Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation and SSHRC-Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships (Not applicable)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › COVID-19 and Mental Health
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Mental Health Treatment and Access
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Maternal Mental Health During Pregnancy and Postpartum
- Keywords
- COVID-19 pandemic, mental health, psychosocial well-being, psychological trauma, mental health interventions, public health response, frontline health workers, community mental health
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