Requirements of Mental Health Services During the COVID-19 Outbreak: A Systematic Review

 After the outbreak of a new viral disease in Wuhan, China, in late December 2019, COVID-19 in a very short time and rapidly became a global pandemic. Through a systematic review, the present paper investigated the requirements of Mental Health Services during the COVID-19 outbreak.

A comprehensive search was conducted through PubMed and NLM Gateway (for MEDLINE), Institute of Scientific Information (ISI), and Scopus. PsychINFO and CINAHL data banks were also searched. The primary roots for the development of the search strategy developed based on the keywords of “Covid”, “mental health”, “care”, “services”. All relevant studies were included without any limitation of publication time or the papers’ language as it was not possible to conduct a formal systematic review given the nature of the publications. Instead, it was decided to conduct a mixed systematic and complementary narrative review covering different interested domains.

 Out of 80 papers, after excluding duplications, 58 articles were selected for the refinement process. Three refining steps based on the titles, abstracts, and full texts led to data extraction from 4 eligible papers. Considering the importance of the problem, related findings, key points, and research findings were summarized and presented in terms of critical components of infrastructure and resources, including policy for at-risk groups, different approaches to mental health service delivery, indirect contexts for mental health service delivery, follow-up attitudes, and complementary research. The results of the study indicate that many studies considered the consequences of physical aspects and diagnostic symptoms. Thus, aspects of mental health have been either less focused or even neglected. In mental health consequences, immediate attention and intensive programs to assess mental health, preparation for support and treatment, and prevention services are emphasized.

 During the implementation of mental health interventions, to improve services and to consider the limitations and challenges of implementing programs, it is necessary to pay attention to the attitudes of target groups and their preferences.