People with a mental disorder are more vulnerable to COVID-19 infection and this can be attributed to cognitive impairment, little awareness of risk, diminished personal protection efforts in patients, along with constraints in having access to regular healthcare, opine experts.
According to the Global Burden of Disease study, around 197 million or one in seven Indians are affected by mental disorders. Their contribution to the overall disease burden has almost doubled from 2.5 per cent to 4.7 per cent over the last two decades. Worry and stress, caused by the coronavirus pandemic, have negatively impacted these people.
As the COVID-19 pandemic wears on, measures taken to curb the outbreak are likely to lead to more distress.
“As a result of prolonged lockdown restrictions, in the latter half of this year, we can see several outbreaks of secondary epidemics such as stress-related disorder. In the current situation, the world is desperately trying to build enough beds to treat Covid-19 patients. Sadly, not much is being done in creating any sort of protection tents of psychological and social welfare to avert the crisis,” said Prafulla Shriyan – research fellow, Indian Institute of Public Health, Bengaluru – was quoted as saying by Hindustan Times.
According to The Lancet, people with mental health conditions could be more substantially influenced by the emotional responses brought on by the COVID-19 epidemic, resulting in relapses or worsening of an already existing mental health condition because of high susceptibility to stress compared with the general population.
The coronavirus strain has also created fear among the general population because of its widespread transmission across the globe. Social support networks have been totally disrupted because of the physical distancing norms. Apart from COVID-19, cases of mental health disorders may increase because of unemployment, pay cut, economic crisis, poverty, and homelessness. Considering all this, there is an urgent need of strengthening the existing healthcare system.
