The PSYCARE model: Its efficacy in mental health care during the fourth outbreak of COVID-19 in Vietnam

OBJECTIVE: Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam) was seriously affected by the 4(th) COVID-19 outbreak. This study aimed to provide mental health care services for people through a psychological intervention model, called “PSYCARE.” The model included five MHC services: active and passive education, propagation, 24-h hotline consultation, online interventions/counseling, and crisis intervention. METHODS: The entire workflow was implemented in the three steps under the leadership of the Ho Chi Minh City government: (1) Preparation and mobilization, (2) Multidisciplinary team establishment, and (3) Feedback mechanism, and project completion. By statistical method on service usage data of people during the outbreak, we evaluated the results as well as discussed the model’s effectiveness. RESULTS: In 42 days of implementation, there were a total of 149 posts, 1660 shares in social networks with more than 4,000 interactions per week. A MHC handbook was published. Ten episodes of MHC radio and ten live TV programs were broadcast with more than 10,000 listening times. We successfully propagated 35 topics at 4 COVID-19 hospitals and 34 quarantine areas. A total of 2,069 hotline consultations were done. 1,382 cases were counseled online, and 145 one-on-one crisis interventions were done to three groups: COVID-19 infected/affected children and adults, vulnerable people, frontline medical, and military staff. CONCLUSION: The PSYCARE model has been proven to positively affect the general population’s mental health during the COVID-19 outbreak. Our framework and model could be used as an expert reference guide in providing effective psychological intervention in the COVID-19 pandemic.