The mental health impact from the coronavirus pandemic is likely to be significant. But putting a figure on the projected increase in suicides may not be accurate – and is unlikely to be helpful.
Mental health is more than just the absence of mental illness. Positive mental health involves feeling good and functioning well, and there are ways to improve even if you don’t have a mental illness.
Circles painted on the grass in San Francisco’s Dolores Park encourage social distancing and help prevent the spread of coronavirus.
(AP Photo/Noah Berger)
Amy Dawel, Australian National University; Eryn Newman, Australian National University et Sonia McCallum, Australian National University
Particularly for people with social anxiety, the prospect of reconnecting with the outside world could be daunting. But there are things you can do to make the transition a little easier.
U.S. war veterans’ graves at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery, San Diego, California.
Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images
Physical activity can help people manage the stress of COVID-19, but closures and distancing have made it even harder to exercise. These researchers are developing a free toolkit to help us all cope.
COVID-19 patients are spending weeks in intensive care units, isolated and alone, knowing they have a disease that doctors don’t fully understand. It’s a recipe for post-traumatic stress disorder.
For some survivors of sexual violence, the lockdown has brought on more trauma.
Drazen Zigic via Shutterstock
Health-care professionals are tasked with a professional responsibility of responding to the health and well-being of the people for whom they care. But what about their well-being?
New funding aims to fend off a wave of mental ill-health in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. We don’t know how severe that wave will be, but we do know financial hardship is a huge risk factor.
Inmates work in the laundry room at Las Colinas Women’s Detention Facility in Santee, California, on April 22, 2020.
Sandy Huffaker/AFP via Getty Images
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, missteps in transitioning the incarcerated back to their communities places this already vulnerable populace at greater risk of getting and transmitting the virus.
Stéphane Vial, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)
The relevance of digital technologies in maintaining mental health has never been greater. However, many have not been scientifically proven and their effectiveness is unknown.
About half of incarcerated women in the United States are mothers to children under age 18. Natural spaces within a prison can help maintain their mother-child bonds.
A family go for a hand-in-hand walk along a street of the old city, in Pamplona, northern Spain, April 27, 2020, as some social distancing rules are relaxing after weeks of quarantine.
(AP Photo/Alvaro Barrientos)
We’ve got this: parents can build kids’ resiliency in by focussing on what’s going well, maintaining some predictability and order, modelling belief in their own abilities and caring for themselves.
Professor, Canada Research Chair in Determinants of Child Development, Owerko Centre at the Alberta Children’s Hospital Research Institute, University of Calgary