Abstract
COVID-19 mitigation measures present unprecedented challenges in mental healthcare delivery, posing high risk to the mental health of at-risk populations, namely patients diagnosed with COVID-19, frontline healthcare providers, and those submitted to quarantine or isolation measures, as well as the general population. Ensuring safe and equitable access to mental healthcare by these groups entails resorting to innovative psychosocial intervention strategies, such as digital mental health. In this perspective piece, we describe the impact of COVID-19 on the Portuguese population's mental health, present an overview on initiatives developed to address the challenges currently faced by the Portuguese mental healthcare system, and discuss how the timely implementation of a comprehensive digital mental health strategy, coupling research, education, implementation, and quality assessment initiatives, might buffer COVID-19's impact on the Portuguese society.
Highlights
The COVID-19 pandemic is a major public health emergency of international concern [1]
In Portugal, the first confirmed case was diagnosed at 2nd March 2020, and since the spread has been fast, contaminating 53,548 people and totalizing 1,770 deaths [3]
Infected patients may present a wide range of symptoms, namely fever, cough, myalgia, fatigue, sputum production, headache, hemoptysis, diarrhea, and/or dyspnea [4]
Summary
The COVID-19 pandemic is a major public health emergency of international concern [1]. During COVID19 crisis and beyond, chatbots could be used to harness the healthcare system by screening and triaging citizens and healthcare providers at risk of developing mental health disorders and by supporting in prompt education and referral Another interesting application of artificial intelligence in this domain is the monitorization of social networks to model pandemic trends as well as monitoring public reactions to the pandemic over time [59], facilitating psychological crisis interventions [49]. The solution lies on rethinking the National Mental Health Plan [108] at the light of the digital paradigm; aligning it with the National Strategic Telehealth Plan [103]; delineating a comprehensive operational plan capable of leveraging duly funded training and implementation research initiatives; and ensuring the digital mental health road starts being paved today, with strategic implementation
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