COVID-19 Pandemic: A Serious Threat for Public Mental Health Globally.

Deep emotion traumas in societies around the globe are overcome by extreme human catastrophes such as natural disasters, social crises, war conflicts and infectious virus induced pandemic diseases, etc., can lead to enormous stress-related disorders. The current ongoing pandemic known as COVID-19 caused by novel Corona virus first appeared in Wuhan, city of China and then rapidly spread in the whole world. It has affected various frontiers of lives and caused numerous psychiatric problems like nervousness, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), fear and uncertainty, panic attacks, depression, obsessive compulsory disorder, xenophobia and racism, etc. Globally COVID-19 has persuaded public mental health crisis. Furthermore, inadequate resources of public mental health services in several countries are discussed in this review, which will be further straighten by the upcoming increase in demand for mental health services due to the COVID-19 pandemic. All mental health sciences including Psychiatry can play a very important role in the comfort of COVID-19 infected individuals and their relatives, healthcare providers and society. We need to learn more about psychological and psychiatric features of COVID-19 from the perceptions of public and global mental health in order to cope up the present deteriorating situation caused by the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.

Mental health crisis in pregnant women during current COVID-19 pandemic

Even though for majority of women pregnancy period is a blessed period of their life but a few expecting women encountered a range of negative emotions in those ninth months which lead to depression and anxiety. Maternal mental health issues are interlinked with both short- and long-term health risks for the affected female parent and as well as for the child. The entire health and functional performance of the mother along with the children's mental, physiological and cognitive development is affected by the disrupting mental health situation of the mother. The risks of morbidities which are caused by the psychological problems such as intense stress, natural disasters and accidents and conflict situation could be increased among the perinatal mothers. As a result, it is possible that obstetric women are more exposed to mental health related issues during the pandemic of COVID-19. It is concluded that development of appropriate strategies is important to reduce stress by diagnosing and managing mental health diseases in new mothers without delay at the time of pandemic. Screening techniques based on internet, online counseling and web-related psychological assistance and therapeutic interventions might produce a significant role in this regard. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)