Revista Internacional de Saúde Mental e Psiquiatria

Psychosocial repercussions of COVID-19

Gunjan Joshi

Introduction: The sudden and unprecedented pandemic of COVID-19 brought about various changes in the lives of people worldwide. There hasn’t been a pandemic so widespread and impacting in the last few decades. This pandemic brought about great burden of communicable diseases as well as increase in the burden of other psychological and social issues. Methodology: We conducted an extensive review of literature. We reviewed the articles related to the psychosocial burden of diseases in the COVID-19 Pandemic. We conducted the review using key words such as (psychosocial burden, COVID-19, children, adolescents, elderly etc.) in the electronic databases. Results: This paper discusses about the finding of extensive review briefly. There is much more to the psychosocial aspects of COVID-19 than those of apparent in nature. The major issues reported are core psychological illnesses like anxiety, depression, PTSD, OCD and associated issues of substance use, domestic violence, insecurities etc. This pandemic has affected all sections of the population; ranging from the children, to elderly, people living on the edges of the society, people suffering from other medical co-morbities and other issues. Various studies have reported that sleep problems, anxiety, and novel behavioral addictions are at a rise and there is possibility of increased burden of mental illnesses after the COVID-19 pandemic. Conclusion and recommendations: The mental healthissues are plentiful during the pandemic and various populations are responding in different ways to the pandemic. The increased fatality and contagious nature, the measures to contain the spread of COVID-19, also has added to the strain of the pandemic. This can be a great opportunity for the mental health professionals to explore their capacities and work in ways increase the access to mental health for whoever needs it.