Mental health in biological disasters: From SARS to COVID-19.

BACKGROUND: The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), like severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), provokes fear, anxiety and depression in the public, which further affects mental health issues. Taiwan has used their experience of the SARS epidemic for the management of foreseeable problems in COVID-19 endemic. AIM/OBJECTIVE: This review summarizes issues concerning mental health problems related to infectious diseases from current literatures. RESULTS: In suspected cases under quarantine, confirmed cases in isolation and their families, health care professionals, and the general population and related effective strategies to reduce these mental health issues, such as helping to identify stressors and normalizing their impact at all levels of response as well as public information and communication messages by electronic devices. The importance of community resilience was also addressed. Psychological first aid, psychological debriefing, mental health intervention and psychoeducation were also discussed. Issues concerning cultures and religions are also emphasized in the management plans. CONCLUSION: Biological disaster like SARS and COVID-19 not only has strong impact on mental health in those being infected and their family, friends, and coworkers, but also affect wellbeing in general public. There are evidenced that clear and timely psychoeducation, psychological first aid and psychological debriefing could amileorate negative impact of disaster, thus might also be helpful amid COVID-19 pandemic.

Development and validation of the Lo's Healthy and Happy Lifestyle Scale (LHHLS): The resilience in general population facing COVID-19 in Taiwan.

BACKGROUND: This article explores the effectiveness of development of the Lo's Healthy and Happy Lifestyle Scale (LHHLS), which is an evaluative tool that monitors the resilience of the Taiwan population in times of such COVID-19 epidemic. Also, to verify factors of resilience, namely the reliability and validity of self-efficacy and positive thinking, and establishment of a prospective norm analysis. METHOD: The study mainly applied Explorative Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) to develop LHHLS and establish the reliability and validity of the tool's structure, verify norm analysis and the reliability of data from each question using Cronbach's alpha. RESULTS: According to statistics, LHHLS has a good factorial effectiveness and relatively high reliability, with factor reliability analyses where Cronbach's alpha lies between 0.83 to 0.94. The 14 questions in the LHHLS has a total variance of 67.04%. The tool includes two sub-assessments that are theoretically and statistically appropriate: mental health/self-efficacy and positive thinking. CONCLUSION: The tool LHHLS can be applied to populations affected by COVID-19. With participants' self-awareness of mental health state and state of happy living, this tool is valid and reliable in assessing and evaluating the resilience of such participants against times of COVID-19. This study can become future use for epidemic prevention communities in monitoring residents' healthy living and changes in their resilience. Also, can become a reference standard for interventions to reduce the impacts populations' happy and healthy living, in times of biological disasters.

Mental health in biological disasters: From SARS to COVID-19

Background: The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), like severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), provokes fear, anxiety and depression in the public, which further affects mental health issues. Taiwan has used their experience of the SARS epidemic for the management of foreseeable problems in COVID-19 endemic. Aim/Objective: This review summarizes issues concerning mental health problems related to infectious diseases from current literatures. Results: In suspected cases under quarantine, confirmed cases in isolation and their families, health care professionals, and the general population and related effective strategies to reduce these mental health issues, such as helping to identify stressors and normalizing their impact at all levels of response as well as public information and communication messages by electronic devices. The importance of community resilience was also addressed. Psychological first aid, psychological debriefing, mental health intervention and psychoeducation were also discussed. Issues concerning cultures and religions are also emphasized in the management plans. Conclusion: Biological disaster like SARS and COVID-19 not only has strong impact on mental health in those being infected and their family, friends, and coworkers, but also affect wellbeing in general public. There are evidenced that clear and timely psychoeducation, psychological first aid and psychological debriefing could amileorate negative impact of disaster, thus might also be helpful amid COVID-19 pandemic.

Challenge and strategies of infection control in psychiatric hospitals during biological disasters-From SARS to COVID-19 in Taiwan.

Psychiatric hospitals play an important role in supporting patients with mental illness to relieve symptoms and improve functioning in a physically and psychologically safe environment. However, these hospitals are also vulnerable to emerging infectious diseases. In early 2020, a psychiatric hospital and a psychiatric unit were reported to have nosocomial coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection. A large number of patients and staff were severely impacted. This type of nosocomial infection threatens patient safety and quality of care. By learning from previous experiences of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and previous studies, psychiatric hospitals can provide safeguards to prevent nosocomial infection among patients and staff during an epidemic or biological disaster. These strategies include a series of actions such as following national guidelines for infection control, reserving adequate support for disinfection equipment, providing relevant and sufficient pro-service and in-service education and training, establishing regular surveillance of hand hygiene habits, proper communication and health education, and providing opportunities for vaccination if possible. Based on the harm reduction concept, staff division of office breaks and ward classification and shunting are recommended and should be further implemented.