Cited by 254COVID-19 and Mental HealthViral Infections and Outbreaks ResearchDisaster Response and Management

The forgotten plague: Psychiatric manifestations of ebola, zika, and emerging infectious diseases

Open access
Tucci, Veronica, Moukaddam, Nidal, Meadows, Jonathan, Shah, Suhal, Galwankar, SagarC, Kapur, GBobby·2017·Journal of Global Infectious Diseases

Abstract

The media and public health generally focus on the biological and physical ramifications of epidemics. Mental health issues that coincide with emerging diseases and epidemics are rarely examined and sometimes, even eschewed due to cultural considerations. Psychiatric manifestations of various infectious diseases, especially with a focus on Ebola Virus disease (EVD) and Zika Virus, are discussed in this commentary to illustrate the continued need of care after the resolution of the actual illness. Various infectious diseases have associations with mental illness, such as an increased risk of obsessive-compulsive disorders and Tourette syndrome in children with Group B streptococcal infection. Current EVD literature does not demonstrate a strong association of mental illness symptoms or diseases but there is a necessity of care that extends beyond the illness. Patients and their families experience depression, anxiety, trauma, suicidal ideation, panic and other manifestations. Zika virus has been associated neuronal injury, genetic alteration that affects fetal development and detrimental maternal mental health symptoms are being documented. While funding calls from the international community are present, there are no specific epidemiological data or fiscal estimates solely for mental health during or after infectious diseases epidemics or disasters that support health care providers and strengthen policies and procedures for responding to such situations. Therefore, those on the frontlines of epidemics including emergency physicians, primary care providers and infectious disease specialists should serve communicate this need and advocate for sustained and increased funding for mental health programs to heighten public awareness regarding acute psychiatric events during infectious diseases outbreaks and offer treatment and support when necessary.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.4103/jgid.jgid_66_17

Cites

19 of 19 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Similar psychological effects have been found from wars and previous disease outbreaks.

    “Similar psychological effects have been found from wars and previous disease outbreaks [10–13].”
  • Outbreak-specific stressors during past outbreaks resulted in poorer mental health outcomes for all groups, with increased rates of sleep disturbance, PTSD, depression, and anxiety in the short and long term.

    “Subsequent studies demonstrated that outbreak-specific stressors resulted in poorer mental health outcomes for all groups, with increased rates of sleep disturbance, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety in the short and long term (Mak et al., 2009; Tucci et al., 2017; Wu et al., 2009; Vetter et al., 2016).”

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 1

  1. [42]American College of Emergency Physcians. Emergency Physicians Need More Resources to Manage Ebola; 20 October, 2014 Press Release 2014 Last cited on 2016 Aug 10 Available from: http://www.newsroom.acep.org/2014-10-20-Emergency-Physicians-Need-More-Resources-to-Manage-Ebola

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Tucci, V., Moukaddam, N., Meadows, J., Shah, S., Galwankar, S., & Kapur, G.
Affiliations
  • Community Health Systems - Merit Health Wesley (US)
  • Baylor College of Medicine (US)
  • Touro College (US)
  • University of Florida (US)
  • Jackson Memorial Hospital (US)
Corresponding author
Tucci, Veronica
Venue
Journal of Global Infectious Diseases
Published
2017
Volume
9
Issue
4
Pages
151
ISSN
0974-777X (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2775190899
Cited by
254
References
19
Citations by year
2026: 4 · 2025: 13 · 2024: 17 · 2023: 27 · 2022: 55 · 2021: 72 · 2020: 63 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 1
FWCI
2.73
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
cc-by-nc-sa
Locations
  • Journal of Global Infectious Diseases (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › COVID-19 and Mental Health
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Infectious Diseases › Viral Infections and Outbreaks Research
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › Emergency Medical Services › Disaster Response and Management
Keywords
Ebola virus disease, Zika virus, emerging infectious diseases, depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, trauma, maternal mental health, group B streptococcal infection, obsessive-compulsive disorder, Tourette syndrome, mental health funding, mental health policy

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review