The mental health effects of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic may shape population health for many years to come. Failure to address the mental health issues stemming from the pandemic is likely to prolong its impact. The COVID-19 pandemic has created a significant global challenge and, in lower-income countries, even a disruption of mental health services. Given our experience with previous pandemics, the present COVID-19 crisis can be expected to cause psychological trauma, and steps are needed to address this issue proactively. A focus on the long-term mental health consequences may be at least as important as the measures currently seeking to mitigate the short-term effects of COVID-19 and to save lives. The implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for mental health call for a greater focus on the needs of those with mental disorders and on mental health issues affecting health care workers and the general public. Timely preventive and therapeutic mental health care is essential in addressing the psychosocial needs of populations exposed to the pandemic. In addition to specialist care, “task-shifting” and digital technologies may provide cost-effective means of providing mental health care in lower-income countries worldwide as well as in higher-income countries with mental health services overwhelmed by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. In view of the ever-increasing pressure on global health systems resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, adopting and adapting “task-shifting”, i.e. the delegation of psychotherapeutic interventions to trained non-specialists, as an element of the provision of mental health services, is overdue. Digital technologies can be used to enhance social support and facilitate resilience to the detrimental mental health effects of the pandemic; they may also offer an efficient and cost-effective way to provide easy access to mental health care.
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and global mental health