COVID-19 has affected people's mental health in different ways. Its not all bad. For example children are thrilled to bits that their parents are around. Except for people in troubled families, generally everybody is appreciating this time they are getting with each other. The need for diversion and entertainment has actually gone down with people really discovering that they love to just do things around the house or be with their family members.
However, I was much surprised that I saw a spurt in referrals for acute psychosis. It appears that people here have vulnerability to psychosis, as a population. Its also possible that the other folks reached Psychologists, while Acute Psychosis cant do without a Psychiatrist's medical intervention so I had to see them. Anyway- people developed delusions about having COVID- that then progressed into delusions of persecution that someone was trying to give them COVID purposely and so on.
Our Police and Chief Minister have constantly been worried about poor compliance to the lockdown orders. In my mind, this is a problem that needs to be researched and understood from a psychology perspective. The non cooperation is a feature of 'normal' individuals and needs to be understood from the perspective of culture and personality. Expert in fields of sociology, anthropology and social psychology need to be consulted on getting a plan to avoid overcrowding. It something urgently needed, because the triad of social distance, hygiene and personal protection will need to be followed for a long time to come.
I expect that this year schools will need to be online. I am not going to present the practical issues like lack of devices, etc as that is not the worry of a Psychiatrist per se. My problem is: As we are not allowed to prescribe stimulants after tele-consulting, learning challenges of children with ADHD may be magnified. We Psychiatrists will really need to come out with coping strategies for families with children. A lot of their learning will have to be supervised by parents and parents need to be seriously empowered by modules on teaching along the lines of home- schooling. But home schooling isnt as rigid as a regular school curriculum is- and therefore parents are going to be struggling to cope with the speed. So schools also need to see if they can have a time table where longer parts in one subject are covered in a day and only 1-3 subjects done daily.
As we brace for a new lifestyle a lot of learning and unlearning will be needed and what do you think can help families and children?
However, I was much surprised that I saw a spurt in referrals for acute psychosis. It appears that people here have vulnerability to psychosis, as a population. Its also possible that the other folks reached Psychologists, while Acute Psychosis cant do without a Psychiatrist's medical intervention so I had to see them. Anyway- people developed delusions about having COVID- that then progressed into delusions of persecution that someone was trying to give them COVID purposely and so on.
Our Police and Chief Minister have constantly been worried about poor compliance to the lockdown orders. In my mind, this is a problem that needs to be researched and understood from a psychology perspective. The non cooperation is a feature of 'normal' individuals and needs to be understood from the perspective of culture and personality. Expert in fields of sociology, anthropology and social psychology need to be consulted on getting a plan to avoid overcrowding. It something urgently needed, because the triad of social distance, hygiene and personal protection will need to be followed for a long time to come.
I expect that this year schools will need to be online. I am not going to present the practical issues like lack of devices, etc as that is not the worry of a Psychiatrist per se. My problem is: As we are not allowed to prescribe stimulants after tele-consulting, learning challenges of children with ADHD may be magnified. We Psychiatrists will really need to come out with coping strategies for families with children. A lot of their learning will have to be supervised by parents and parents need to be seriously empowered by modules on teaching along the lines of home- schooling. But home schooling isnt as rigid as a regular school curriculum is- and therefore parents are going to be struggling to cope with the speed. So schools also need to see if they can have a time table where longer parts in one subject are covered in a day and only 1-3 subjects done daily.
As we brace for a new lifestyle a lot of learning and unlearning will be needed and what do you think can help families and children?
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