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.
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.
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.
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.
The pandemic has health professionals all around the country reaching out to their clients online. It’s a trend we should continue, to ensure the most disadvantaged don’t miss out on care.
We expect a steep rise in mental health problems as a result of the pandemic. But there are ways to flatten this curve, just as we’ve flattened the curve of infections.
Professor, Canada Research Chair in Determinants of Child Development, Owerko Centre at the Alberta Children’s Hospital Research Institute, University of Calgary