Coronavirus Pandemic on Mental Health

“As much as covid-19 is surrounding physical health, mental health is equally as important as physical health” (Sarah Morgan, 2020). Mental health problems have become an inevitable issue in this pandemic situation. “Mental health is a state of well-being in which an individual realizes his or her abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively, and can contribute to his or her community” (World Health Organization). However, poor mental health can lead people to mental or physical illnesses. In this time of crisis, the coronavirus pandemic, the number of mental health illness sufferers increased. The coronavirus pandemic has caused people to feel extremely anxious, get stigmatization, and suicidal behavior. Therefore, people must pay attention to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on mental health.

The coronavirus pandemic perhaps has a long-term impact on the psychological side. One of the difficulties of the coronavirus’s existence is that people get frightened, and when people get frightened, it causes people to get anxious. “Fear and anxiety about a new disease and what could happen can be overwhelming and cause strong emotions in adults and children” (CDC, 2020). 

The over feeling of anxiety because of coronavirus can sometimes cause people to become quite agoraphobic. For instance, a person with agoraphobia due to the coronavirus pandemic will get trouble breathing or might be feeling like dying even when she/he only meets their neighbor within 6 meters; thus, they will tend much time only at home and fear of leaving home because of anxious catching by the viruses. Feeling over-anxious is not only troublesome both physically and psychologically, though it distresses other people too. For example, when a person gets an over-anxious feeling about the existence of coronavirus, then he/she starts going to groceries and taking all of both hand sanitizer and a mask with the aim of protecting his/herself in the other hand, such things make other people who need coronavirus protector (hand sanitizer and mask) cannot get it, this matter can start to create an anxious and stress feeling on other people psychology. 

One over-anxious person can affect society’s well-being. Not only causing an illness in physics, psychology, and society but also the anxiety of living through covid-19 epidemic is likely to open trauma. For instance, when there is a new regulation of large-scale social restriction, people cannot go outside, some of them staying at home in the shadow of solitude, and for those who had painful life experience in the past, it might trigger the memory of the trauma consciously or unconsciously. Which can affect, in this case, the mental health condition can become long-term. The mental health impact of the pandemic is likely to last longer than the physical health impact.

The second impact of coronavirus is stigmatization. “stigma can damage mental health and worsens the condition of someone suffering an illness; stigma affects people who directly interact with the disease” (Wahyu Sulistiadi, 2020). A social phenomenon, stigma, is likely often faced by health worker providers. According to CNN Indonesia, there was a case on March 22, 2020, in East Jakarta where a doctor and nurse were not welcomed into their neighborhood because the societies feared they would spread the coronaviruses. 

Even more than that, healthcare providers who get stigmatized and those who have tested positive for covid-19 face it too. For example, when the infected people get self-isolation at home, the neighborhood societies start to gossip and negatively label the infected people. They also give discrimination and social rejection to the covid-19 sufferer family. Moreover, sometimes, societies do not want to walk through the front of the covid-19 sufferers because of fear of being infected.

The last impact of coronavirus on mental health is can cause suicidal behavior. “Suicidal behavior includes suicidal ideation, suicidal attempts, and completed suicide. Suicidal behavior is often accompanied by intense feelings of hopelessness, depression or parasuicidal behavior” (Kathryn Castle, 2007). Alongside the suicidal act, which manifests stress and anxiety, suicidal behavior can be experienced by either the positive tested of covid-19 patients or those who are tested negative for covid-19. A positive tested covid-19 sufferer who was treated at the Surabaya Hajj Hospital committed suicide by jumping from the 6th floor Al Aqso building; the patient is suspected of being depressed knowing that he is positive covid-19 (Suarajakarta, 2020). Those who are negative tested covid-19 also can experience suicidal behavior. 

For example, when people lose their job, along with the economic recession, he/she cannot have an income to live life. It might create an extreme depression, and it is more challenging because this matter was happening in an unnormal situation, which gives uncontrol emotional pressure to its people; the worsen is that its people could have a thought of suicidal acts or might commit suicide acts. As well, the healthcare professional has a high possibility of doing suicide too. For instance, when a healthcare professional is chosen to handle the covid-19 sufferer and directly witnesses the death of the treated patient, it increases the risk of a suicide act among healthcare professionals.

In conclusion, as previously stated, the coronavirus has caused people to feel extremely anxious and stigmatized; the worst is suicidal behavior. On the anxiety side, being over-eager about the coronavirus can cause people to be quite agoraphobic, panic buying that distresses others, and open trauma. The other impact is stigmatization faced by health workers and positively tested covid-19 sufferers. The last and the worst one is that coronavirus can make people have a suicidal behavior. The positive covid-19 patients can experience it because of stress, negative covid-19 tested people because of lost jobs, and healthcare professionals because of depression, witnessed the death of treated patients.