key: cord-281185-myfuzsh7
authors: Yan, Bin; Ni, Guohui; Huang, Yeen
title: China’s experience on mental health in response to the COVID-19 pandemic
date: 2020-06-12
journal: Asian J Psychiatr
DOI: 10.1016/j.ajp.2020.102205
sha: 
doc_id: 281185
cord_uid: myfuzsh7

nan

1. Create a comfortable environment conducive to maintenance of patients' mental health: First, adjust the lighting according to the treatment requirements, hospitals could try to keep the ward lights in a certain circadian rhythm and dim the lights at night.

Second, assist patients to keep in touch with their family and friends through mobile phone or internet and try to strengthen their confidence to overcome the disease with family and social supports. Third, provide online lectures on infectious diseases and health education to the patients with mild symptoms. Fourth, distribute booklets of mental health knowledge according to patients' disease conditions, and provide government-recommended online health education platform. Encourage patients to self-study and help each other, obtain scientific outbreak information and mental health knowledge, carry out self-psychological evaluation and adjustment, and seek online professional help. Fifth, recommend a daily activity schedule for mild patients, for helping them to develop an orderly daily activity plan, and establish a regular routine in an unfamiliar environment (National Health Commission of China, 2020; Li & Gang, 2020).

2. Deliver psychological assistance and crisis intervention to patients: First, identify patients who is in need of psychological assistance and help them with self-adjustment.

Participate in medical care shifts and ward rounds to identify patients who need psychological assistance and help them adopt psychological assessment, and develop specific plans based on the patient's mental status. If necessary, perform rapid psychological interventions and help patients do self-adjustment such as relaxation training. Second, identify patients with psychosocial problems, provide crisis intervention and psychiatric medication. Organize psychiatric consultation in time for patients with emotional agitation, difficulty in treatment and management, and mental and behavioral problems, such as delirium, impulse, anxiety, depression, and suicidal tendency. Provide crisis intervention and psychiatric drug treatment, mainly symptomatic treatment, rapid relief of symptoms, pay attention to the drug interactions between the patient's physical condition and psychiatric treatment. Third, keep the files of patients with psychological assistance. For discharged patients who need continuous J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f psychological assistance or psychiatric drug intervention, the information handled by the psychiatric department should be recorded in medical documents and referred to the corresponding isolation places, so as to continue to provide psychological assistance and social work services, to avoid extreme events. 2. Provide psychological support and psychological crisis intervention for healthcare workers: First, in the healthcare workers rest area, set up a spiritual post station, including two rooms. A room contains some snacks, beverages, books, or brochures, and is equipped with TV or computer playback equipment to play audios and videos, such as relaxation training audio, instructions on how to do self-relaxing, how to use the relevant psychological network platforms and so on. The other room can have a certain degree of privacy and is used for one-on-one psychological assessment and intervention, which is recommended for on more than 10 minutes at a time. Second, make videos or reading materials on psychological assistance for typical problems, such as patients' not cooperating with treatment, fear of infection, sense of healthcare exhaustion, guilt and even self-worth and professional negation. Third, if there are mental and psychological symptoms that persist and can not be alleviated, which affect J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f daily work, one-to-one psychological crisis intervention can be carried out or be transferred to other positions with less pressure. Indeed, psychiatric treatment should be provided if necessary. Fourth, given the condition, group support activities such as group psychological counseling can be carried out in the healthcare workers accommodation area or rest area. Fifth, one-to-one psychological assessment and psychological crisis intervention should be carried out for medical personnel who's relative has recently died or in a serious condition.

1. When referring to people with COVID-19, do not attach the disease to any particular ethnicity or regionality. Be empathetic to all those who are affected, in and from any regions.

2. Do not refer to people with the disease as "the COVID-19 cases", "victims", "the COVID-19 families", or "the diseased". It is important to separate a person from having an identity defined by the COVID-19, in order to reduce stigma.

3. Minimize watching, reading, or listening to news about the COVID-19 that causes the public to feel anxious or distressed; seek information only from trusted sources and mainly so that people can take practical steps to prepare their plans and protect themselves and loved ones. Seek information updates at specific times during the day, once or twice. Gather information at regular intervals from the WHO website and local health authority platforms in order to help people distinguish facts from rumors. 

This study did not receive any funding.

Psychological interventions for people affected by the COVID-19 epidemic

Guideline for psychological assistance and social work services in designate hospital for COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic, personal reflections on editorial responsibility

Progression of Mental Health Services during the COVID-19 Outbreak in China

We express our heartfelt respect to all the people who are fighting the pandemic around the world.
