Occupational Therapy in Mental Health via Telehealth during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Antonio José Sánchez-Guarnido,Roberto González-Casares,Carlos Herruzo,José Antonio Garrido-Cervera,Silvia Marí-Boned,Águeda Represa-Martínez,Esther Domínguez-Macías

doi:10.3390/ijerph18137138

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about changes in mental health occupational therapy. Research into these changes and the associated risks of relapse is insufficient. To explore the changes that have taken place in forms of occupational intervention (face-to-face and online) during the pandemic, and to analyze their association with subsequent relapses, a multicenter retrospective cohort study was carried out of 270 patients with mental disorder diagnoses under follow-up in day hospitals during 2020. Our results show that the frequency of face-to-face occupational therapy interventions decreased during lockdown and subsequently recovered. Interventions via telehealth increased during lockdown and have since been continued to a greater extent than before lockdown. Patients who received occupational intervention via telehealth relapsed less in the following six months (10.7% vs. 26.3%; χ2 = 10.372; p = 0.001), especially those who received intervention via videoconferencing (4.2% vs. 22%; χ2 = 5.718; p = 0.017). In conclusion, lockdown subsequent to the COVID-19 outbreak led to a reduction in face-to-face occupational therapy interventions, putting people with prior mental disorders at risk, while the implementation of telehealth tools helped reduce relapses.

Highlights

COVID-19 is a pathology with mainly physical symptoms that can affect the occupational balance and mental health of the population, especially vulnerable people like those who have previously suffered from mental disorders [1]
Other researchers have looked at how mental health care underwent changes during the COVID-19 pandemic and how many countries resorted to telehealth, the implementation of remote interventions and their results were found to have been mixed [1]
Our study enabled us to analyze the changes that took place in mental health occupational therapy interventions during the pandemic, a subject insufficiently addressed in the scientific literature

Summary

Introduction

COVID-19 is a pathology with mainly physical symptoms that can affect the occupational balance and mental health of the population, especially vulnerable people like those who have previously suffered from mental disorders [1].With regard to its physical consequences, the disease has been shown to cause pulmonary, cardiac, and muscular problems and neurological manifestations that directly affect mobility and the performance of daily activities, both basic and instrumental, in people undergoing recovery [2,3]. The COVID-19 crisis and the home confinement to which the population was subjected during the lockdown period had a significant impact on occupational activity in all areas of daily life [4]. This impact has resulted in major changes in behavioral patterns: interruption of daily routines and occupations, modification of habits, adoption of new and/or previously unperformed roles, and the impossibility of executing the rituals that form part of the individual’s occupational identity [5].

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