The Need for an Adaptive Sociotechnical Model for Managing Mental Health in a Pandemic

Abstract

Many people experienced an increase in mental health distress due to the isolation requirements arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic and the resulting isolation protocols to control the spread of the virus no doubt, sparked researchers' interest in seeking solutions to address the impact on people's mental health in different situations. One of such solutions is the use of technologies to cope with mental health challenges. Though a plethora of technology exists for communication and socialization with several others proposed to deal with mental health breakdown during the pandemic, there is no ‘one-size fits all’ technology that has been identified to address every individual's distress level and coping strategy. This study thus, examines the existing technologies that have been used by people to manage their mental health distress, and proposes a sociotechnical model that can be used to identify current technologies and the effectiveness of such technologies in addressing an individual's mental health distress and symptoms.