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TELEPHONE COUNSELLING IN COPING WITH THE COVID-19 LOCKDOWN CONSEQUENCES: PRELIMINARY DATA
Journal of Psychopathology ; 28:19, 2022.
Article in English | EMBASE | ID: covidwho-1935231
ABSTRACT
SCOPO DEL LAVORO Stressful effects of COVID-19 lockdown measures adopted to restrict population movements to help curb the epidemic impacted on people's daily lives. Biella is Northern Italy province. For decades this province has had suicide rates higher than the Piedmonts and Italian average. In two most recent decades a positive correlation between financial stressors, 2008 economic crisis related, and suicide has been found. As the current economic crisis COVID-19 related is expected to exacerbate again the vulnerability to suicide of this province, during the first lockdown the Crisis Center for Suicide Prevention of Biella set up a telephone counselling service. We aimed to evaluate whether it represented a suitable and useful tool for suicidal crisis prevention. MATERIALI E METODI We evaluated whether some techniques such as “emotional stabilization”, represented a suitable and useful tool for suicidal crisis prevention. Suitability and usefulness were assessed, based on caller feedback obtained during the first and last interviews using the so-called “thermometer of emotions” callers were asked to describe (a) the intensity of their emotions with respect to stress, anxiety, depressed mood, anger, and sleep and (b) the need to manage these emotions. Callers were also asked to provide feedback regarding their overall satisfaction with the service on a scale from 0 to 10. The phones were attended by two psychologists and each intervention usually consisted of four phases (i) psychoeducation, (ii) emotional stabilization, (iii) identification and reinforcement of personal resources, (iv) ending the telephone counselling session. RISULTATI A total of 199 telephone counselling sessions were made involving 47 callers, about 87% of whom never had any previous contact with a mental health service. Ten callers went on to urgent outpatient psychiatric visit, while three cases required a network intervention involving their general practitioner and social services, guaranteeing a multidisciplinary continuity of care. During the telephone counselling sessions, callers described different conditions including fear of financial loss, family conflicts, agitation, depression, and suicide ideation. Through the use of the “thermometer of emotions”, callers who have undergone telephone interviews and interventions, have gradually provided lower scores both in the emotions intensity and in the need of managing them (data in elaboration). All callers reported a high level of satisfaction with the telephone counselling service (average rating of 9.5 out of 10). The phone service was closed in June 2020. CONCLUSIONI The most innovative element of this project was that it proposed interventions for the emotional stabilization, something that is usually used in face- to-face sessions. Using the right protocols, it proved to offer continuity care and reduce pressure on hospital emergency departments while delivering good outcomes and patient satisfaction. Therefore, the COVID-19 pandemic provided an opportunity to overcome normative, technological, and cultural barriers regarding the use of remote healthcare services.
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Collection: Databases of international organizations Database: EMBASE Language: English Journal: Journal of Psychopathology Year: 2022 Document Type: Article

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Collection: Databases of international organizations Database: EMBASE Language: English Journal: Journal of Psychopathology Year: 2022 Document Type: Article