SafeSpace 

Online Counselling

The Covid-19 pandemic has caused major challenges to health care systems and public health policies globally. In response, many countries had to adapt their existing health care facilities in order to reduce the severity of the impact on the population.  Lockdown was introduced to majority of the countries which entailed social distancing, confinement to your homes, working remotely, no social gatherings, no travels, no/limited access to alcohol sales. These global and national protocols have undoubtedly welcomed economic burden, emotional distress, behavioral changes and anti-social coping mechanisms (Wiederhold, 2020).

The ramifications of dealing with a global crisis rapidly leaves many individuals with psychological distress making them vulnerable to various risk factors. A distressed person is more likely to make life alerting decisions or actions in an attempt to find stability. A life stressor that is caused by a global crisis such as COVID-19 or economic recession acts as a stimuli that causes stress reactions that individuals experience as above their environmental and personal resources ability to control or minimize them (Gilstrap & Ziertan, 2018). A trend of increased negative coping skills has emerged since Covid-19 in terms of alcohol dependency, porn over indulgence and dependency on computer games. Therefore, increasing individuals vulnerability to mental health disorders. Lastly, it is evident that the consequences of Covid-19 has left many individuals with PTSD due to the uncertainty of economic and health stability. Mental health illnesses are more frequent than ever before and needs to be addressed with professional mental health care to reduce negative outcomes such as alcohol and/or drug abuse, suicides, behavioral problems and etc.