World Health Organisation Warns about COVID-19 Impact on Mental Health Services
The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted or paralyzed essential mental health services in 93% of the world'ss countries, according to a new study by the World Health Organization (WHO), while the demand for mental health care continues to increase. The study, which covers 130 countries, provides the first global data on the devastating effects of COVID-19 on access to mental health services and highlights the urgent need to increase the funding.
Grief, isolation, loss of income, and fear are causing or aggravating mental health disorders. Many People have increased their alcohol or drug use and suffer from increasing insomnia problems as well as anxiety. On the other hand, COVID-19 itself can come with neurological and mental complications, such as delusional states, agitation or strokes. People with mental, neurological, or drug-related disorders are also more vulnerable to SARS-CoV-2 infections and may be at increased risk of serious illness or even death.
The study was carried out between June and August 2020 in 130 countries within the six WHO regions with the goal to assess the alterations suffered by mental health, neurological health and treatment services of drug addiction as a result of COVID-19, to determine the types of services that have suffered from alterations and to analyze the measures taken by countries to adapt and address these problems.
Countries noted widespread alterations of many types in essential mental health services:
- More than 60% of the countries reported alterations in mental health services for vulnerable people, including children and adolescents (72%), elderly people (70%), and women requiring antenatal or postnatal services (61%).
- 67% observed alterations in psychological counseling and psychotherapy services; 65% in essential risk reduction services and 45% in maintenance treatmentswith alternative drugs for opiate addicts.
- More than a third (35%) reported alterations in the emergency interventions, including the help for people affected by prolonged seizures, severe withdrawal syndromes related to drug use and delusions, which are often a sign of underlying medical conditions.
- 30% reported alterations in the access to medication intended to treat mental, neurological and drug-related disorders.
- About three quarters reported at least partial alterations in mental health services in schools and workplaces (78% and 75% respectively)
Although many countries, 70%, have adopted telemedicine or teletherapy to address alterations of face-to-face care services, there are significant disparities in adopting to these. More than 80% of high-income countries reported using telemedicine and teletherapy to alleviate mental health difficulties, for low-income countries however, this does not even reach 50%.
While 89 percent of countries reported, within the framework of the study, that mental health and psychosocial support are part of their national response plans to COVID-19, only 17 percent of these countries provide adequate additional funding to cover these activities.
This highlights the need to put more money into the mental health sector. As the pandemic continues, demand for national and international mental health programs will rise, weakened by years of chronic funding shortfalls.
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