Neuropsychological and Psychosocial Consequences of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Abstract

The coronavirus disease designated as COVID-19 reached the level of a pandemic, affecting countries all across the world. Widespread outbreaks of COVID-19 are associated with psychological distress and symptoms of mental disorders. This article is a narrative review of the existing scientific literature on mental health of the society and interventions relevant to the COVID-19 pandemic. A search in the existing databases using the respective keywords has been carried out. It focuses on the consequences of the pandemic with respect to people's mental health in different clusters of society, including children, health care workers and their relatives, and pregnant women and their families. The unpredictability of the virus pandemic and its high transmission rate is an emergency of psychological problems and certain neuropsychological symptoms, such as fear and abnormal high anxiety, with respect to the spread of the disease, depression, avoidant behaviors, sleep disturbance, irritability, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), pathological anger, and suicide cases.