A pandemic's impact on Mental Health

BACKGROUND: A small topic-specific foresight exercise that shows how monitoring the current and country-specific state of people's mental health has been done in Austria. Since the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic cannot be precisely quantified with just one or two indicators, a different approach is needed. METHODS: A comprehensive overview of different mental health indicators is a good approach to identify general trends in the psychosocial health of the population. In the absence of survey data, it was decided to focus on available routine data. A specific country context can be understood through comparisons between countries, as was done in use case D of the PHIRI project. RESULTS: Even though the pandemic (or other crises) affected practically everyone's life, some population groups are showing significant psychological suffering, e.g., young people (especially girls and young women), people with pre-existing mental health conditions, and elderly. CONCLUSIONS: Hence, interventions need to be taken at various levels of a society-wide approach. This means that despite specialized psychosocial support, interventions on “lower levels” dealing with matters of social security, community support etc. are necessary. The Austrian example was used to describe insights to future developments that are applicable to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic to mental health of the population in several European countries.