COVID-19 pandemics and mental health: In times like these, we learn to live again

The scenario of pandemics is one of the most dreaded and alarming by mankind.Unfortunately, this is the scenario we are facing now.During a period of pandemics, many situations can be overwhelming, not only related directly to the primary disease, but also related to the measures needed to be taken to combat it, and also its aftermath.Pandemic-related stressors may come in many ways.Uncertainty and anticipated fear, excessive (and possibly fake or misguided) information, psychological and social distress, fear of death or serious illness, loss of close ones, economical societal burden and personal financial difficulties are only a few examples of stressful situations that come along with the pandemics 1,2 .Considering the prolonged and sustained nature of a pandemic, encompassing exposure to multiple potentially traumatic events during a significant period, it could be considered a type of complex trauma [3][4][5] .History has already shown that psychiatric morbidity is another dreadful outcome from an epidemic.The SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) epidemic in 2003 victimized more than 700 individuals, mostly in Asian countries.Up to 45% of SARS survivors that needed hospitalization had at least one psychiatric diagnosis in the immediate discharge from the hospital, including depression, anxiety disorders, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms.Even long term pos-discharge evaluations (e.g. 30 months after discharge) showed persistent psychiatric morbidity among SARS patients, mainly PTSD, depressive disorders and anxiety-spectrum disorders 6,7 .After the 2014/2015 Ebola virus outbreak in Africa, many psychiatric and Psychosocial problems arose, such as stigma and isolation, and also psychiatric disorders in the general population and among health care workers, including PTSD, depression and anxiety disorders 8,9 .The Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in 2015, which had a high mortality rate (about 20%) caused hundreds of people -and entire villages and cities -to be intensively isolated.During the period of isolation due to the MERS epidemic, more than 40% of the general population reported emotional distress.Among patients, almost 50% reported significant symptoms of anxiety 10 .It is to be expected that the COVID-19 pandemics will have several psychiatric short-and long-term consequences as well.COVID-19 pandemics is triggering psychological distress and psychiatric problems.Individual characteristics such as culture, economic status, coping mechanisms, previous psychiatric or psychological issues, personal degree of exposure to the risk of contamination, actual development of the disease and/or loss of close persons are some of the factors that influence psychological response to such unusual and uncertain times.In a societal level, access to accurate and legitimate information, availability of medical services, governmental and medical measures to contain the spread of infection (e.g.quarantine and social isolation) and general psychosocial condition of the community may influence the collective response to the outbreak 9,[11][12][13] .But not all is bad.Human resilience is a powerful force, and it sometimes can overcome the hardest of problems.The majority of the population will present healthy mental health responses to the traumatic events experienced during the pandemic.Peoples' ability to

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   Mental health status of people isolated due to Middle East Respiratory Syndrome · 2016

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