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Mental Health Support in the Time of Crisis: Are We Prepared? Experiences With the COVID-19 Counselling Programme in Hungary

The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) posed unexpected global economic and societal challenges. These include a heavy impact on mental health due to fast changing lockdown and quarantine measures, uncertainty about health and safety and the prospect of new waves of infections. To provide crisis me...

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Autores principales: Szlamka, Zsófia, Kiss, Márta, Bernáth, Sámuel, Kámán, Péter, Lubani, Amina, Karner, Orsolya, Demetrovics, Zsolt
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8200459/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34135783
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.655211
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author Szlamka, Zsófia
Kiss, Márta
Bernáth, Sámuel
Kámán, Péter
Lubani, Amina
Karner, Orsolya
Demetrovics, Zsolt
author_facet Szlamka, Zsófia
Kiss, Márta
Bernáth, Sámuel
Kámán, Péter
Lubani, Amina
Karner, Orsolya
Demetrovics, Zsolt
author_sort Szlamka, Zsófia
collection PubMed
description The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) posed unexpected global economic and societal challenges. These include a heavy impact on mental health due to fast changing lockdown and quarantine measures, uncertainty about health and safety and the prospect of new waves of infections. To provide crisis mental health support during the pandemic, Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary launched a specialist online counselling programme, consisting of one to three sessions. The programme was available to all university members between 4th March and 25th May 2020. Overall, 47 clients received support. In this paper we discuss challenges reported by clients, key features of providing a brief mental health intervention online, reflect on counsellor experiences and give recommendations on how mental health services could be developed in the time of crisis. Most clients had challenges with developing a daily routine under quarantine; and many had hardship related to finances, housing, and distance learning. Common mental health consequences included fear from the virus and stress, anxiety, and fatigue due to the interruption to everyday life. In some cases, more complex conditions were triggered by the pandemic. Examples include addictive behaviours and symptoms of depression or psychosis. However, referring cases beyond the competency of counselling proved to be a challenge due to the closure of specialist services. Counsellors observed three key features to the online delivery of a brief crisis mental health intervention: [1] an explicit problem-oriented approach to counselling; [2] challenges of building rapport online; and [3] frames of online counselling. Counsellor experiences often overlapped with those of clients and included challenges of working from home and adjusting to online counselling methods. The possibility of online counselling allowed that mental health care could take place at all during the pandemic. Client experiences reflect findings from previous literature. Like other mental health initiatives launched to tackle COVID-19, the intervention's effectiveness was not measured given the unexpected context and short time frame for programme development. We recommend the use of impact measurement tools to develop mental health services in crises. Meanwhile, the pandemic brought to attention the need to better understand online delivery models. Counsellors should have access to training opportunities on online counselling and managing work-life balance in a remote setting. The COVID-19 counselling programme in Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary is an example of providing online mental health counselling in the time of crisis. Clearly, more studies are needed discussing delivery models and effectiveness of mental health interventions during the pandemic. Experience and knowledge sharing across practitioners should be encouraged to improve how the field reacts to unexpected, high risk events and crises.
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spelling pubmed-82004592021-06-15 Mental Health Support in the Time of Crisis: Are We Prepared? Experiences With the COVID-19 Counselling Programme in Hungary Szlamka, Zsófia Kiss, Márta Bernáth, Sámuel Kámán, Péter Lubani, Amina Karner, Orsolya Demetrovics, Zsolt Front Psychiatry Psychiatry The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) posed unexpected global economic and societal challenges. These include a heavy impact on mental health due to fast changing lockdown and quarantine measures, uncertainty about health and safety and the prospect of new waves of infections. To provide crisis mental health support during the pandemic, Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary launched a specialist online counselling programme, consisting of one to three sessions. The programme was available to all university members between 4th March and 25th May 2020. Overall, 47 clients received support. In this paper we discuss challenges reported by clients, key features of providing a brief mental health intervention online, reflect on counsellor experiences and give recommendations on how mental health services could be developed in the time of crisis. Most clients had challenges with developing a daily routine under quarantine; and many had hardship related to finances, housing, and distance learning. Common mental health consequences included fear from the virus and stress, anxiety, and fatigue due to the interruption to everyday life. In some cases, more complex conditions were triggered by the pandemic. Examples include addictive behaviours and symptoms of depression or psychosis. However, referring cases beyond the competency of counselling proved to be a challenge due to the closure of specialist services. Counsellors observed three key features to the online delivery of a brief crisis mental health intervention: [1] an explicit problem-oriented approach to counselling; [2] challenges of building rapport online; and [3] frames of online counselling. Counsellor experiences often overlapped with those of clients and included challenges of working from home and adjusting to online counselling methods. The possibility of online counselling allowed that mental health care could take place at all during the pandemic. Client experiences reflect findings from previous literature. Like other mental health initiatives launched to tackle COVID-19, the intervention's effectiveness was not measured given the unexpected context and short time frame for programme development. We recommend the use of impact measurement tools to develop mental health services in crises. Meanwhile, the pandemic brought to attention the need to better understand online delivery models. Counsellors should have access to training opportunities on online counselling and managing work-life balance in a remote setting. The COVID-19 counselling programme in Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary is an example of providing online mental health counselling in the time of crisis. Clearly, more studies are needed discussing delivery models and effectiveness of mental health interventions during the pandemic. Experience and knowledge sharing across practitioners should be encouraged to improve how the field reacts to unexpected, high risk events and crises. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-05-31 /pmc/articles/PMC8200459/ /pubmed/34135783 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.655211 Text en Copyright © 2021 Szlamka, Kiss, Bernáth, Kámán, Lubani, Karner and Demetrovics. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychiatry
Szlamka, Zsófia
Kiss, Márta
Bernáth, Sámuel
Kámán, Péter
Lubani, Amina
Karner, Orsolya
Demetrovics, Zsolt
Mental Health Support in the Time of Crisis: Are We Prepared? Experiences With the COVID-19 Counselling Programme in Hungary
title Mental Health Support in the Time of Crisis: Are We Prepared? Experiences With the COVID-19 Counselling Programme in Hungary
title_full Mental Health Support in the Time of Crisis: Are We Prepared? Experiences With the COVID-19 Counselling Programme in Hungary
title_fullStr Mental Health Support in the Time of Crisis: Are We Prepared? Experiences With the COVID-19 Counselling Programme in Hungary
title_full_unstemmed Mental Health Support in the Time of Crisis: Are We Prepared? Experiences With the COVID-19 Counselling Programme in Hungary
title_short Mental Health Support in the Time of Crisis: Are We Prepared? Experiences With the COVID-19 Counselling Programme in Hungary
title_sort mental health support in the time of crisis: are we prepared? experiences with the covid-19 counselling programme in hungary
topic Psychiatry
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8200459/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34135783
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.655211
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