key: cord-1010476-1322i7lb
authors: Fiorillo, Andrea; Gorwood, Philip
title: The consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health and implications for clinical practice
date: 2020-04-01
journal: European psychiatry : the journal of the Association of European Psychiatrists
DOI: 10.1192/j.eurpsy.2020.35
sha: 0aefcfb7f8f424c21f70dbb39518ea15fa9f01cb
doc_id: 1010476
cord_uid: 1322i7lb

nan

the risk of developing mental health problems, simple advices may be provided to the general population:

1. Limit the sources of stress: to rely on a limited amount of official information sources only and to limit the time of the day devoted to this activity, disregarding those which come from unofficial channels and uncontrolled sources. 2. Break the isolation: to increase the communication with friends, family members, and loved ones, even if at a distance. Video-chat or group calls with family members may help to reduce loneliness and precariousness. In case of insufficient social network, professional helplines are particularly useful, if managed by qualified trained professionals. 3. Maintain your usual rhythm: keep a regular routine, by having regular sleep-wake rhythms and diet patterns. Addictive behaviors might be particularly at risk of rebound or relapses, therefore intellectual, physical, and social (even if virtual) activities will be useful. 4. Focus on the benefit of the isolation: we should indeed be conscious that this is a transient period and that this isolated time is needed as we are not only saving our health, but also protecting all others by stopping the epidemic, and therefore shaping our own future. 5. Ask for professional help: getting a psychiatric help or consultation, if the effects of stress is becoming too invasive, is always possible, even if with different modalities. Almost all psychiatric clinics are now equipped for providing support, emotional defusing, problem-solving strategies, and psychiatric consultations-also at a distance.

The pandemic will be over, but its effects on mental health and well-being of the general population, health professionals, and vulnerable people will remain for a long time. We hope that all of the mental health community will have very quickly the opportunity to take care of patients in more conventional and personalized ways. Crises also reveal resilience skills and quality of links, the solidarity observed between European countries for severe cases (exchanging patients, material, and competencies) is a nice example to follow.

Conflict of Interest. The authors declare no potential conflict of interests.

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