The effects of COVID-19 reach far beyond mortality, triggering widespread economic and sociopolitical consequences. It is unsurprising to learn, after everything that has transpired in the past two years, that COVID-19 has also had a detrimental effect on our mental health. Recent studies in the US and UK have shown a huge increase in the number of adults who have experienced symptoms of an anxiety or depressive disorder over pre-pandemic figures.
On today’s episode, we spoke with Professor Seamas Donnelly, editor of QJM: An International Journal of Medicine, and Dr John C. Markowitz, author of In the Aftermath of the Pandemic: Interpersonal Psychotherapy for Anxiety, Depression, and PTSD, to explore the factors behind these figures, COVID-19’s impact on our mental health, and where we go from here.
Check out Episode 67 of The Oxford Comment and subscribe to The Oxford Comment podcast through your favourite podcast app to listen to the latest insights from our expert authors.
Recommended reading
To learn more about COVID-19 and mental health, check out John C. Markowitz’s book In the Aftermath of the Pandemic, which addresses specific clinical issues that arise in the context of the pandemic, and provides specialized tools for handling them. Dr Markowitz is also the author of other books, including Interpersonal Psychotherapy for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and The Guide to Interpersonal Psychotherapy.
QJM: An International Journal of Medicine has published several articles related to COVID-19 and mental health, including:
- “The psychological impact of COVID-19 on the mental health in the general population”
- “Dealing with Community Mental Health post the Fukushima disaster: lessons learnt for the COVID-19 pandemic”
- “The importance of studying the increase in suicides and gender differences during the COVID-19 pandemic”
The journal also published articles related to healthcare professionals (“The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of healthcare professionals”) and those living with long COVID (“Post-COVID syndrome and suicide risk”).
Additionally, you can find more resources on Oxford University Press’s Mental Health and COVID-19 content hub. The hub features journal articles on mental distress among US adults during the pandemic, the psychological impact of lockdowns, the ramifications of the pandemic on Medicare in the US, and much more.
You can also explore a chapter from Oxford Clinical Psychology on “Helping People Cope with Disasters” and a chapter from the Oxford Textbook of Suicidology and Suicide Prevention on “Evidence-based suicide prevention strategies during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Featured image: Photo by Heike Trautmann on Unsplash.
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