ABSTRACT
Background: COVID-19 pandemic had multiple associated actions from government and consequences for public. NIMHANS Bangalore had initiated a national helpline for psychosocial support for people affected by COVID pandemic. Large number of individuals contacted the helpline for seeking various kinds of help. This paper reports the temporal patterns of help seeking behavior in a population exposed to COVID-19 pandemic and associated adversities. Objectives: The aim of the study was to identify meaningful patterns in help seeking behavior of population affected by the biological disaster to improve our understanding population level behavioral patterns. This could also provide insight useful for health policy and administration. Methods: Distribution analysis of 316,134 calls received during the period of 28th March 2020 – 31st December 2020 on two temporal factors. We used Microsoft excel for the analysis of data. Results: Temporal distribution shows a sudden spike (forming a J curve) in the first four weeks of starting the helpline, this was followed by sharp decline for next four weeks and finally showing a slow decline with fluctuating patterns over next 32 weeks. Pattern of data on hourly rates of calls shows a maximum number of help seeking calls during 10am-8pm, and least numbers of calls during 12am-5am. Conclusions: The descriptive analysis of temporal patterns in help seeking behaviours drawn from this large dataset of national helpline provide insights and reference for health administrators and policy makers in effective planning and efficient utilization of scarce mental health resources. © 2023 DMICS.
ABSTRACT
This paper explores and compares health system responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, in the context of existing governance features. Content compiled in the Covid-19 Health System Response Monitor combined with other publicly available country information serve as the foundation for this analysis. The analysis mainly covers early response until August 2020, but includes some key policy and epidemiological developments up until December 2020. Our findings suggest that despite the many similarities in adopted policy measures, the five countries display differences in implementation as well as outcomes. Declaration of state of emergency has differed in the Nordic region, whereas the emphasis on specialist advisory agencies in the decision-making process is a common feature. There may be differences in how respective populations complied with the recommended measures, and we suggest that other structural and circumstantial factors may have an important role in variations in outcomes across the Nordic countries. The high incidence rates among migrant populations and temporary migrant workers, as well as differences in working conditions are important factors to explore further. An important question for future research is how the COVID-19 epidemic will influence legislation and key principles of governance in the Nordic countries.