China's experience on mental health in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has affected over 200 countries and regions with considerable confirmed cases and deaths, and also caused public panic and huge psychological pressure. After about 4 months of large-scale intervention, China has now entered the second phase of fighting the pandemic. In terms of psychological assistance to patients, healthcare workers, and general public, China has accumulated some useful experience for those countries that are still in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. We hoped that these Chinese experiences could provide useful psychological assistance targeted for the COVID-19 to Asia and other countries and regions (Tandon, 2020).

Psychological assistance and social work services for the COVID-19 patients

Create a comfortable environment conducive to maintenance of patients’ mental health: First, adjust the lighting according to the treatment requirements, hospitals could try to keep the ward lights in a certain circadian rhythm and dim the lights at night. Second, assist patients to keep in touch with their family and friends through mobile phone or internet and try to strengthen their confidence to overcome the disease with family and social supports. Third, provide online lectures on infectious diseases and health education to the patients with mild symptoms. Fourth, distribute booklets of mental health knowledge according to patients’ disease conditions, and provide government-recommended online health education platform. Encourage patients to self-study and help each other, obtain scientific outbreak information and mental health knowledge, carry out self-psychological evaluation and adjustment, and seek online professional help. Fifth, recommend a daily activity schedule for mild patients, for helping them to develop an orderly daily activity plan, and establish a regular routine in an unfamiliar environment (National Health Commission of China, 2020; Li and Gang, 2020).

Deliver psychological assistance and crisis intervention to patients: First, identify patients who is in need of psychological assistance and help them with self-adjustment. Participate in medical care shifts and ward rounds to identify patients who need psychological assistance and help them adopt psychological assessment, and develop specific plans based on the patient’s mental status. If necessary, perform rapid psychological interventions and help patients do self-adjustment such as relaxation training. Second, identify patients with psychosocial problems, provide crisis intervention and psychiatric medication. Organize psychiatric consultation in time for patients with emotional agitation, difficulty in treatment and management, and mental and behavioral problems, such as delirium, impulse, anxiety, depression, and suicidal tendency. Provide crisis intervention and psychiatric drug treatment, mainly symptomatic treatment, rapid relief of symptoms, pay attention to the drug interactions between the patient’s physical condition and psychiatric treatment. Third, keep the files of patients with psychological assistance. For discharged patients who need continuous psychological assistance or psychiatric drug intervention, the information handled by the psychiatric department should be recorded in medical documents and referred to the corresponding isolation places, so as to continue to provide psychological assistance and social work services, to avoid extreme events.

Psychological support and crisis intervention for healthcare workers

Meet the actual needs of healthcare workers in time and make appropriate suggestions about physical and mental health: First, join the WeChat group with front-line healthcare workers, be familiar with front-line staffs, find out those in need of psychological assistance in time, and provide individual psychological support. Second, make a reasonable shifting schedule according to the situation. Plan ahead, so that everyone has a full psychological expectation of their own work. Third, use workgroups to encourage more connections and supports among colleagues. Fourth, notice the worries of the front-line healthcare workers in time. If there are some difficulties in the families of the front-line healthcare workers identified, its is necessary to report to the coordination management staff in order to solve the family difficulties and make the healthcare workers feel at ease to work. Fifth, provide self-mental-health-care skills for front-line healthcare workers, take the initiative to help them reduce psychological stress, and improve their psychological adjustment ability (Wen et al., 2020).

Provide psychological support and psychological crisis intervention for healthcare workers: First, in the healthcare workers rest area, set up a spiritual post station, including two rooms. A room contains some snacks, beverages, books, or brochures, and is equipped with TV or computer playback equipment to play audios and videos, such as relaxation training audio, instructions on how to do self-relaxing, how to use the relevant psychological network platforms and so on. The other room can have a certain degree of privacy and is used for one-on-one psychological assessment and intervention, which is recommended for on more than 10 min at a time. Second, make videos or reading materials on psychological assistance for typical problems, such as patients’ not cooperating with treatment, fear of infection, sense of healthcare exhaustion, guilt and even self-worth and professional negation. Third, if there are mental and psychological symptoms that persist and can not be alleviated, which affect daily work, one-to-one psychological crisis intervention can be carried out or be transferred to other positions with less pressure. Indeed, psychiatric treatment should be provided if necessary. Fourth, given the condition, group support activities such as group psychological counseling can be carried out in the healthcare workers accommodation area or rest area. Fifth, one-to-one psychological assessment and psychological crisis intervention should be carried out for medical personnel who’s relative has recently died or in a serious condition.

Mental health and psychosocial considerations for general population

When referring to people with COVID-19, do not attach the disease to any particular ethnicity or regionality. Be empathetic to all those who are affected, in and from any regions.

Do not refer to people with the disease as “the COVID-19 cases”, “victims”, “the COVID-19 families”, or “the diseased”. It is important to separate a person from having an identity defined by the COVID-19, in order to reduce stigma.

Minimize watching, reading, or listening to news about the COVID-19 that causes the public to feel anxious or distressed; seek information only from trusted sources and mainly so that people can take practical steps to prepare their plans and protect themselves and loved ones. Seek information updates at specific times during the day, once or twice. Gather information at regular intervals from the WHO website and local health authority platforms in order to help people distinguish facts from rumors.

Find opportunities to amplify positive and hopeful stories and positive images of local people who have experienced the COVID-19. For example, stories of people who have recovered or who have supported a loved one and are willing to share their experience.

Honor careers and healthcare workers (For example, Dr. Wenliang Li, one of the earliest people who discovered the COVID-19 and participated in the fight against the pandemic, eventually died of this disease) supporting people affected with the COVID-19 in the local community. Acknowledge the role they play in saving lives and keeping people and their loved ones safe.

Financial disclosure

This study did not receive any funding.

Declaration of Competing Interest

None.