The COVID-19 pandemic presented urgent challenges to each aspect of the world, revealing the existing issues in the systems. The sector influenced the most by this pandemic is undoubtedly healthcare. The governments focused their response on the physical health of their citizens and containing the spread of the virus. However, mental health remained mostly unaddressed during the first waves of the disease (McCartan et al., 2021). Isolation and other phycological stress triggers exacerbated existing mental issues for many people (Kathirvel, 2020). Dealing with these issues is still difficult for most countries, considering varying mental health stigma levels (Lange, 2021). Moreover, the pandemic revealed a lack of funding and established mental healthcare structures. Therefore, for an effective action plan, addressing these fundamental issues and public perception is crucial. This proposal will limit the patient pool to adults suffering from mental health complications due to prolonged isolation to narrow the broad scope of the issue.
There are numerous suggestions for improved mental healthcare outcomes on the fundamental level. According to Lestari and Setyawan (2021), these foundational issues in healthcare can be separated into five categories, presenting five layers of society and ways to manage the solutions on each level. The first three categories relate to the type of patients needing help, including individuals, the elderly, and children (Lestari and Setyawan, 2021). For this analysis, only the policy and action recommendations for individuals or adults, in this case, will be considered. The solutions outlined by Lestari and Setyawan (2021) include hotlines, emergency services, online courses, and counseling. These objectives can only be properly accomplished on the governmental level with increased funding and reforms to guarantee the desired health outcomes.
Hospitals and other healthcare providers can also rearrange the use of their existing resources to maximize their effectiveness and provide more essential services to the patients if possible. Moreover, the public and medical professionals should be united in their goal of raising awareness of this issue to bring the attention of the government and medical organizations. In other words, the first step of the action plan is to find or establish the resources for the patients.
The next step of the action plan is to manage these resources efficiently. According to Lestari and Setyawan (2021), the following layer is healthcare workers. In particular, the role of general practitioners (GP) and nurses is important for this step. They need to be able to not only be aware of the issue but to intervene effectively and educate the public on the problem and existing solutions and resources. Therefore, according to Turabian (2020), the first step for healthcare professionals is to assess the patient’s situation in the context of their mental health struggles and isolation effects. In other words, professionals need to know about the pandemic, its effects, and other background factors. They can identify the risks and maladaptive behaviors more accurately and consequentially be able to provide care for these patients. A contingency plan for the crisis intervention based on the monitoring mentioned above is crucial for saving patients’ lives. Thus, the measures, including phycological monitoring of the at-risk populations, can be implemented by GPs and nurses.
Moreover, up-to-date knowledge allows them to educate the patients and the public on mental health and available resources. For at-risk patients, timely information can save their lives and improve mental health outcomes. One of the more general education efforts is bibliotherapy, suggested by Turabian (2020). In other words, medical staff and organizations can provide the public with free copies of books on the subject with possible commentary and reading guides. Some healthcare workers and companies took their educational content to social media to achieve the same awareness goals. It can be even more effective as social media is not only the most popular medium of information among adults recently but contains the most inaccurate data concerning health. Thus, medical professionals can share accurate information on the issue, possible solutions, resources, and prevention measures or healthy activities in isolation.
The solutions can also include a more personalized approach, including telecare. Telecare is an essential tool for GPs to administer care in the condition of social distancing and isolation. The GPs can also engage in the closer and more personal monitoring of the patients for maladaptive behavior and potential risks. Moreover, they can directly educate the patient and recommend more customized measures for recovery while recording the progress and effects of the changes. It leads to the necessary and basic counseling procedure, a follow-up, which is especially important during these times of increased mental health issues.
Overall, an effective action plan involves every part of society: from the healthcare workers to the public. Thus, every stakeholder should work together for the betterment of the mental health situation. The first step is establishing resources and structures for the working healthcare system. The second step is managing these resources to deliver care and accurate information to the patients, ranging from general solutions to more personalized ones. It includes monitoring the situation, providing the data and recommendations, administering cirisis intervention based on the monitoring results, and more personalized care, including telecare.
References
Kathirvel, N. (2020). Post COVID-19 pandemic mental health challenges. Asian journal of psychiatry, 53, 102430. Web.
Lange, K. W. (2021). Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and global mental health. Global health journal, 5(1), 31-36. Web.
Lestari, R., & Setyawan, F. E. B. (2021). Mental health policy: protecting community mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Public Health Research, 10(2). Web.
McCartan, C., Adell, T., Cameron, J., Davidson, G., Knifton, L., McDaid, S., & Mulholland, C. (2021). A scoping review of international policy responses to mental health recovery during the COVID-19 pandemic. Health Research Policy and Systems, 19(1), 1-7. Web.
Turabian, J. L. (2020). Implications on mental health by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic: The role of general practitioner. Health, 7(8), 35-41. Web.