The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has become a pandemic affecting health and wellbeing globally. In addition to the physical health, economic, and social implications, the psychological impacts of this pandemic are increasingly being reported in the scientific literature. This narrative review reflected on scholarly articles on the epidemiology of mental health problems in COVID-19. The current literature suggests that people affected by COVID-19 may have a high burden of mental health problems, including depression, anxiety disorders, stress, panic attack, irrational anger, impulsivity, somatization disorder, sleep disorders, emotional disturbance, posttraumatic stress symptoms, and suicidal behavior. Moreover, several factors associated with mental health problems in COVID-19 are found, which include age, gender, marital status, education, occupation, income, place of living, close contact with people with COVID-19, comorbid physical and mental health problems, exposure to COVID-19 related news and social media, coping styles, stigma, psychosocial support, health communication, confidence in health services, personal protective measures, risk of contracting COVID-19, and perceived likelihood of survival. Furthermore, the epidemiological distribution of mental health problems and associated factors were heterogeneous among the general public, COVID-19 patients, and healthcare providers. The current evidence suggests that a psychiatric epidemic is cooccurring with the COVID-19 pandemic, which necessitates the attention of the global health community. Future epidemiological studies should emphasize on psychopathological variations and temporality of mental health problems in different populations. Nonetheless, multipronged interventions should be developed and adopted to address the existing psychosocial challenges and promote mental health amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Epidemiology of mental health problems in COVID-19: a review.

Many Indian COVID-19 suicide cases are turning the press-media attention and flooding in the social media platforms although, no particular studies assessed the COVID-19 suicide causative factors to a large extent. Therefore, the present study presents 69 COVID-19 suicide cases (aged 19 to 65 years; 63 cases were males). The suicide causalities are included as follows - fear of COVID-19 infection (n=21), followed by financial crisis (n=19), loneliness, social boycott and pressure to be quarantine, COVID-19 positive, COVID-19 work-related stress, unable to come back home due to lockdown, unavailability of alcohol etc. Considering the extreme psychological impacts related to COVID-19, there emerges a need for countrywide extensive tele-mental health care services.

Aggregated COVID-19 suicide incidences in India: Fear of COVID-19 infection is the prominent causative factor.

Exploring COVID-19 stress and its factors in Bangladesh: A perception-based study

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact daily life, including health system operations, despite the availability of vaccines that are effective in greatly reducing the risks of death and severe disease. Misperceptions of COVID-19 vaccine safety, efficacy, risks, and mistrust in institutions responsible for vaccination campaigns have been reported as factors contributing to vaccine hesitancy. This study investigated COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy globally in June 2021. Nationally representative samples of 1,000 individuals from 23 countries were surveyed. Data were analyzed descriptively, and weighted multivariable logistic regressions were used to explore associations with vaccine hesitancy. Here, we show that more than three-fourths (75.2%) of the 23,000 respondents report vaccine acceptance, up from 71.5% one year earlier. Across all countries, vaccine hesitancy is associated with a lack of trust in COVID-19 vaccine safety and science, and skepticism about its efficacy. Vaccine hesitant respondents are also highly resistant to required proof of vaccination; 31.7%, 20%, 15%, and 14.8% approve requiring it for access to international travel, indoor activities, employment, and public schools, respectively. For ongoing COVID-19 vaccination campaigns to succeed in improving coverage going forward, substantial challenges remain to be overcome. These include increasing vaccination among those reporting lower vaccine confidence in addition to expanding vaccine access in low- and middle-income countries. 

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Revisiting COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy around the world using data from 23 countries in 2021

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Geriatric care in public health emergencies is a serious concern, while, high case-fatalities among older adults across the globe in COVID-19 pandemic implies lack of preparedness. Most of the countries irrespective of developing and developed one enormously struggling because of an inchoate response system ignorant of geriatric health needs. Therefore, a robust approach is highly essential that requires an integrated emergency preparedness by addressing geriatric care.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/01634372.2020.1746723

Geriatric Care during Public Health Emergencies: Lessons Learned from Novel Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19) Pandemic

The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is impacting health globally, whereas older adults are highly susceptible and more likely to have adverse health outcomes. In Bangladesh, the elderly population has been increasing over the past few decades, who often live with poor socioeconomic conditions and inadequate access to healthcare services. These disparities are likely to increase amid COVID-19, which may result in high mortality and morbidity among Bangladeshi older adults. We recommend that multifaceted interventions should be adopted for strengthening social care and health systems approach to ensure wellbeing, promote preventive measures, and facilitate access to healthcare among older adults in Bangladesh. Such multipronged measures would require policy-level commitment and collaborative efforts of health and social care providers and institutions to protect health and wellbeing among this vulnerable population during the COVID-19 pandemic.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/01634372.2020.1772932

Geriatric Health in Bangladesh during COVID-19: Challenges and Recommendations.

Globally, rapid growth of the aging population will end up almost double from 12% to 22% by 2050, while Asia is experiencing its unprecedented pace (WHO, 2017). Mental disorders substantially contributed to the overall disease burden estimated by approximately 15% among elderlies (WHO, 2017). Bangladesh, the home of 14 million elderly adults (7.7% of the total population), the aging population has been projected to increase to 17.2 million by 2025 (Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, 2015). This rapidly growing aging population is experiencing increasing risk of a wider range of noncommunicable diseases. However, mental disorders among elderly adults are often underestimated because of lack of awareness and perceived needs of medical care for physical health problems, whereas comorbid psychiatric conditions remain underdiagnosed among individuals. Although mental disorders are highly prevalent among elderly adults in Bangladesh, rural and marginalized populations experience higher burden of such problems and associated disparities. Earlier studies in rural Bangladesh found the prevalence of depression ranging from 36.9% to 45% among elderly, whereas 23% experienced suicidal thoughts (Wahlin et al., 2015; Disu et al., 2019). Dementia is another serious concern, about 3.6% to 11.5% older adults in Bangladesh experience dementia (Palmer et al., 2014). Education, in regards, lessens dementia prevalence, whereas malnutrition increases the odds of dementia significantly (adjusted OR: 5.9, 95% CI 1.3–26.3) (Palmer et al., 2014). On the other hand, rural residency, living alone, and illiteracy including lack of religious practice were correlated with geriatric depression (Wahlin et al., 2015; Disu et al., 2019) that might imply lack of social support system for geriatric population in Bangladesh. Apart from that, geriatric mental disorders are attributed to disability, estimated 6.6% disability adjusted life years (DALY) worldwide (WHO, 2017). Disability strongly intertwined with depression while both inevitably entail social alienation that collectively exacerbated misery among elderly adults. In Bangladesh, mental disorders receive low priority in policy discourse. The country also suffers from the dearth of skilled human resources, fragmented institution-based health service delivery system, poorly equipped primary healthcare setup, and lack of research for an integrated health system which eventually contributed to the existing gaps. Therefore, elderly people in rural areas mostly remain undiagnosed because of entrenched stigma in the society to mental disorders as well as other social and financial constraints. Hence, integrating mental health into the primary care is the paramount to increase accessibility, especially in rural Bangladesh. However, improving mental health system in a resource-constrained country like Bangladesh exerts numerous challenges, which necessitates implementation research and policylevel actions for sustainable development of mental healthcare in this context. In such process, geriatric mental health should be considered as a distinct domain for addressing health system challenges through strategic policy making and mobilizing community resources for improvingmental health among elderlies. Considering the long run ramifications of population aging, several multisectoral approaches need to be incorporated for establishing a robust and enabling holistic system to deal with this greater portion of geriatric population in future. Besides, ensuring an effective social support system and different approaches to develop community-based peer-group for their active engagement to the society predominantly able to protect elderlies from mental illnesses, thus able to promote good quality of life.

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Hoimonty Mazumder

Papers

Epidemiology of mental health problems in COVID-19: a review.

Geriatric Care during Public Health Emergencies: Lessons Learned from Novel Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19) Pandemic

Geriatric Health in Bangladesh during COVID-19: Challenges and Recommendations.

Geriatric mental health in Bangladesh: a call for action.

Geriatric health in Bangladesh during COVID-19: challenges and recommendations