Covid pandemic triggers anxiety disorder in people, say experts

As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to rage across the world, it has caused a cascading effect on jobs, salaries, livelihoods and businesses leading to a rise in stress and anxiety in people.

The pandemic has halted 93% of mental health service across the world resulting in relapse or upping of reported cases.

Last week, Telemedicine app Practo announced in a release that it witnessed a significant rise in mental health-related queries which grew 665% since last year (October 2019 to September 2020) and by 180% in the last six months.

Of all the mental health queries recorded, 60 per cent were from Indians aged between 21 and 30 years, followed by 25 per cent in the 31-40 age group, 5 per cent in the 41-60 age group, and 10 per cent among those aged 60 and above.

Many countries adopted telemedicine or teletherapy to overcome the disruptions in-person healthcare services, however, several disparities were found in the uptake of these. More than 80% of high-income countries reported deploying telemedicine and teletherapy to bridge gaps in mental health, compared with less than 50% of low-income countries, reported a WHO Survey of 130 countries.

The survey reported that bereavement, isolation, loss of income, fear are triggering mental health conditions or exacerbating existing ones and many people may be facing increased levels of alcohol and drug use, insomnia, and anxiety.

"Initially, it was just normal fear and worry about how long this (Covid pandemic) is going to continue, but now it has actually turned into a full-blown disorder, said Dr Santosh Bangar, Consultant- Psychiatrist at Global Hospital. “There has been a rise in the cases that we're seeing in the clinic. A lot of people are coming with anxiety disorders, panic attacks, panic disorders, depression and alcohol problem. The patients who are well maintained, who got better, even they've had a relapse. So it's a double whammy for them,” he further added.

Dr Amrit Pattojoshi, chief coordinator of Indian Psychiatry Society-WHO-Unicef, an initiative to provide psychiatric telemedicine facility during Covid-19, said that mental health problems have risen significantly. "There is a huge set of people who feel that they might be having Covid, even if there is mild discomfort."

Dr Pattojoshi believes that coming days will be the most difficult as people have been hoping for normalcy but nothing of that sought might happen due to the economic slump.

"The rise of mental health issues in 50-60 per cent of my patients are directly related to the Covid pandemic," said Dr Sonal Anand, Psychiatrist at Wockhardt Hospital. "The most common mental health issues are anxiety disorders, sleep disorders and rise in obsessive-compulsive disorder due to fear of germs and also rise in cases of fearfulness in the geriatric population," Dr Anand told ETHealthworld.

The mental health experts were quite optimistic about the potential of teleconsultation to reduce the gap in providing treatment to people suffering from mental health problems without fearing the stigma associated with it.

The pandemic has lead to an increase in the demand for mental health services, however, there is an urgent need to improve the budget allocation and funding towards mental health for better awareness and effective implementation of the programmes.