Discuss five psychosocial factors that may have contributed to the unfortunate passing of people due to covid-19.?
Answers
Answer:
Abstract
Background
Along with its high infectivity and fatality rates, the 2019 Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19) has caused universal psychosocial impact by causing mass hysteria, economic burden and financial losses. Mass fear of COVID-19, termed as “coronaphobia”, has generated a plethora of psychiatric manifestations across the different strata of the society. So, this review has been undertaken to define psychosocial impact of COVID-19.
Methods
Pubmed and GoogleScholar are searched with the following key terms- “COVID-19”, “SARS-CoV2”, “Pandemic”, “Psychology”, “Psychosocial”, “Psychitry”, “marginalized”, “telemedicine”, “mental health”, “quarantine”, “infodemic”, “social media” and” “internet”. Few news paper reports related to COVID-19 and psychosocial impacts have also been added as per context.
Results
Disease itself multitude by forced quarantine to combat COVID-19 applied by nationwide lockdowns can produce acute panic, anxiety, obsessive behaviors, hoarding, paranoia, and depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the long run. These have been fueled by an “infodemic” spread via different platforms social media. Outbursts of racism, stigmatization, and xenophobia against particular communities are also being widely reported. Nevertheless, frontline healthcare workers are at higher-risk of contracting the disease as well as experiencing adverse psychological outcomes in form of burnout, anxiety, fear of transmitting infection, feeling of incompatibility, depression, increased substance-dependence, and PTSD. Community-based mitigation programs to combat COVID-19 will disrupt children's usual lifestyle and may cause florid mental distress. The psychosocial aspects of older people, their caregivers, psychiatric patients and marginalized communities are affected by this pandemic in different ways and need special attention.
Conclusion
For better dealing with these psychosocial issues of different strata of the society, psychosocial crisis prevention and intervention models should be urgently developed by the government, health care personnel and other stakeholders. Apt application of internet services, technology and social media to curb both pandemic and infodemic needs to be instigated. Psychosocial preparedness by setting up mental organizations specific for future pandemics is certainly necessary.
Keywords: Psychosocial, Covid-19, Coronavirus, SARS-CoV2, Social media, Pandemic, Quarantine, Mental health, Stigma, Internet, Telemedicine
1. Introduction
Human civilization probably is passing through the most critical juncture of this millennium while its existence is being challenged by the emergence of a novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-Cov-2) encroaching newer territories all over the world expeditiously [1]. The 2019 Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19) outbreak has been declared an international public health emergency on January 30, 2020 by the World Health Organization (WHO) as the disease, first reported from China in December 2019, continues to surge through the continents affecting many countries from Europe, America and Asia severely and is still widening its burden of disease [2]. A wide fragment of world's population currently is primarily restricted to their homes, owing to nationwide lockdowns and home-confinement strategies implemented in the majority of the COVID-19-hit countries after China to prevent further disease transmission [3,4]. This unpredictable, fast spreading infectious disease has been causing universal awareness, anxiety and distress, all of which according to WHO are natural psychological responses to the randomly changing condition [5]. Adverse psychosomatic outcomes among common people are nevertheless expected to increase significantly due to the pandemic itself and also due to constant flow of readily available information and reinforced messaging obtained via online social networking services of almost all forms. As a consequence, rapidly expanding mass hysteria and panic regarding COVID-19 may beget enduring psychological problems in public from all the socioeconomic domains, which could potentially be even more detrimental in the long run than the virus itself [6]. Prior studies elucidated that mental well-being has been heavily affected in this kind of global pandemic [7,8]. Therefore, it is imperative to determine the various possible ways in which COVID-19 pandemic will be impacting the world's mental health [[9], [10], [11]]. In this background, we evaluate the relevant psychosocial consequences and impact of COVID-19 in various strata of modern society. (see Fig. 1 )
The five psychosocial factors that led to the death of people during covid 19 are:
1. Loneliness- Strictly confining oneself at home led to isolation and loneliness. People couldn't go out for refreshment and life became monotonous.
2. Fear of losing job- The pandemic situation and the subsequent lock down a led to closing of many firms and thus people ended up losing jobs. A certain section of the society also feared to lose their jobs.
3. Family discord or violence- Staying more at home led to problems among family members. This resulted in depression and psychotic behaviour among people.
4. Loss of dear ones- The pandemic has led to the death of many and this has led to depression among the near and dear ones. Also, the loss of communication with dear ones has aggravated the problem.
5. Fear of failure- Staying at home led to thoughts of failure. Considering the falling growth level of the country, many people are bound to consider their lives to be a failure as well.