ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: This study reviewed the psychological consequences of the novel coronavirus disease COVID-19 and the challenges that face post-traumatic interventions. COVID-19 pandemic has multifaceted psychological effects extending social stigmatization to COVID-19 patients, resulted in delaying in medical care and hiding important medical history, particularly of travel, this in turn will increase the risk of transmission. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY: To explore if there is significant impacts of public health emergency COVID-19 on mental health among clients attending Al/Karkh Care centers. METHODS: Cross-sectional study describes the mental health status among clients attending Al-Karkh Health Centers during the COVID-19 pandemic, using mental health reports from Mental Health Unit/Al-Karkh Health Directorate, which were collected from January to August. Using (SPSS25) for statistical analysis. Statistical test Chi-square used and p value of ⩽.05 was considered significant. RESULTS: The percentages of psychological disturbances among clients is higher throughout the first 7 months of 2019 than 2020, till August the percentage of psychological disturbances started to hike up in 2020 than in 2019 (6%), (5.4%) respectively. Throughout the months of 2020 up to August there was significant difference between male and female clients in mental disturbances p value <.0001. CONCLUSION: The current study found that COVID-19 pandemic is expected to raise great challenges for mental health services in health care centers and constitute a mental health risk especially to women and girls compared to men.