Covid-19 - Psychological research and treatment

I think it's just a cobbled together set of standard questionnaires for different mental illnesses including OCD, paranoia, psychosis, depression anxiety, etc. I had a go at filling it in, but some of it didn't really make sense in my situation.
 
It may sound silly to you, but these are things that people with certain mental disorders (E.g. OCD or psychosis) may think. I agree the questionnaire is absolutely terribly designed though.

Yes I was about to say this. I could tick off a few of those statements at various times due to my OCD. But these psychologists always think of these things in a vacuum. If I was living in New Zealand right now, or Australia, or Vietnam or Denmark or Norway etc, or somewhere that was serious about eradicating the virus and making people and the country safe again, my OCD wouldn’t be flaring as it is now. Quite frankly if 17% of london had been infected, I am right to worry that coronavirus may well be on any surface, it may well be! It’s like saying oh your house is burning down, are you feeling anxious about the fire?
 
It’s like saying oh your house is burning down, are you feeling anxious about the fire?

Exactly. It's all about context and what level of anxiety, worry, concern etc is appropriate to the situation.

Appropriate levels of anxiety or worry in the right context are a very good thing. I have some concerns about the risk of fire and that motivates me to install fire alarms. So far so good.

If I then become complacent just because I have installed fire alarms and leave a cigarette burning on the arm of my sofa & the house burns down. That's not so great.

If at the more extreme end I fit fire alarms and take all reasonable precautions and still lie awake at night. Then I may well need help with that. That's not the norm though and will not apply to the majority of people.

These questionnaires are the equivalent of giving a three year old a plastic toy piano and expecting the nuances of a virtuoso playing Rachmaninoff. The questions are usually too vague or ambiguous, they completely lack context and are open to different interpretations by the person filling them in and the individual assessing them. Add to that the desire of certain profession to significantly expand their "customer" base and that's pretty much where we are.
 
Appropriate levels of anxiety or worry in the right context are a very good thing. I have some concerns about the risk of fire and that motivates me to install fire alarms. So far so good.

If I then become complacent just because I have installed fire alarms and leave a cigarette burning on the arm of my sofa & the house burns down. That's not so great.

If at the more extreme end I fit fire alarms and take all reasonable precautions and still lie awake at night. Then I may well need help with that. That's not the norm though and will not apply to the majority of people.

These questionnaires are the equivalent of giving a three year old a plastic toy piano and expecting the nuances of a virtuoso playing Rachmaninoff. The questions are usually too vague or ambiguous, they completely lack context and are open to different interpretations by the person filling them in and the individual assessing them.

This is exactly it. This is my experience but I got a better understanding of my OCD and mental health problems once I had started speaking to my autism-specific counsellor.

On any “anxiety” checklist I score extremely high, similar for an OCD checklist. Although on depression checklists I hardly score any at all. I’ve had lifelong anxiety that has never budged with CBT, group therapy, hypnotherapy, counselling.. you name it, I’ve had it.

With anxiety I am super anxious that people don’t like me. I was always told I was just being anxious for no reason, I had to change my thought patterns and so on. My autism counsellor made me realise that the reason I’m anxious is because I literally cannot read expressions well. I did a test online for reading people’s expressions prior to my autism diagnosis (just for my own information), and I did awfully, despite everyone saying I am great in social situations and despite having had a lot of experience and obviously teaching myself all my life. I was given a book on facial expressions but got so frightened & anxious about the book, I never looked at it again as some of the “extreme” expressions like fright, surprise, worry, disgust, anger, all look same to me - very frightening and it upsets me.

Even online I’m always anxious that I’ve upset someone, it stays with me for a long time..because it’s not obvious in the way people talk to you, whether things are ok or not. Like it’s not upfront and you are required to interpret things. And I always rely on physical cues such as people smiling at me.. to know that they like me or that I haven’t said something wrong. So online I try to analyse “tone” and I sometimes fail. So actually on an anxiety questionnaire I score as highly anxious - but relating it back to my autism difficulties, from a young age (but not knowing it), and wanting to fit in always,it makes sense.

Or for example my issue with not knowing how something is going to work out. Anxiety is called preoccupied about the future too much. But I need to be to an extent.. because I can’t always cope when things suddenly change. And I catastrophise as well, because in real life situations I find it very hard to imagine what a realistic outcome would be. And the advice for autistic people on Autism UK is for friends/family to help them out.

My OCD is also in some sense related to trying to make sense of the world and it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Like I got a flare after someone I knew died. Or when I’m very anxious about other people because my ME is so bad so I’m scared no one will be able to look after me in the future. And even without ME I genuinely cannot cope on my own. Or when something like this virus happens. And normal “therapy” never worked for me but understanding my brain, understanding how overwhelmed I was and why I was getting these problems, via my autism counsellor - helped me more. Normal psychological therapy never understood these things. They just labelled me as extremely anxious. And actually pushed me into bad situations.
 
I get very anxious in cars. Finally I realise that I cannot see motion very well because of the ME so traffic suddenly appears from nowhere. It is a frightening thing. Now I just close my eyes (not the driver!!!) and accept that I have a visual problem, not a mental problem.
 
This is exactly it. This is my experience but I got a better understanding of my OCD and mental health problems once I had started speaking to my autism-specific counsellor.

On any “anxiety” checklist I score extremely high, similar for an OCD checklist. Although on depression checklists I hardly score any at all. I’ve had lifelong anxiety that has never budged with CBT, group therapy, hypnotherapy, counselling.. you name it, I’ve had it.

With anxiety I am super anxious that people don’t like me. I was always told I was just being anxious for no reason, I had to change my thought patterns and so on. My autism counsellor made me realise that the reason I’m anxious is because I literally cannot read expressions well. I did a test online for reading people’s expressions prior to my autism diagnosis (just for my own information), and I did awfully, despite everyone saying I am great in social situations and despite having had a lot of experience and obviously teaching myself all my life. I was given a book on facial expressions but got so frightened & anxious about the book, I never looked at it again as some of the “extreme” expressions like fright, surprise, worry, disgust, anger, all look same to me - very frightening and it upsets me.

Even online I’m always anxious that I’ve upset someone, it stays with me for a long time..because it’s not obvious in the way people talk to you, whether things are ok or not. Like it’s not upfront and you are required to interpret things. And I always rely on physical cues such as people smiling at me.. to know that they like me or that I haven’t said something wrong. So online I try to analyse “tone” and I sometimes fail. So actually on an anxiety questionnaire I score as highly anxious - but relating it back to my autism difficulties, from a young age (but not knowing it), and wanting to fit in always,it makes sense.

Or for example my issue with not knowing how something is going to work out. Anxiety is called preoccupied about the future too much. But I need to be to an extent.. because I can’t always cope when things suddenly change. And I catastrophise as well, because in real life situations I find it very hard to imagine what a realistic outcome would be. And the advice for autistic people on Autism UK is for friends/family to help them out.

My OCD is also in some sense related to trying to make sense of the world and it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Like I got a flare after someone I knew died. Or when I’m very anxious about other people because my ME is so bad so I’m scared no one will be able to look after me in the future. And even without ME I genuinely cannot cope on my own. Or when something like this virus happens. And normal “therapy” never worked for me but understanding my brain, understanding how overwhelmed I was and why I was getting these problems, via my autism counsellor - helped me more. Normal psychological therapy never understood these things. They just labelled me as extremely anxious. And actually pushed me into bad situations.
Where did you get an autism counsellor?
 
The importance of kindness during COVID-19
"In this final blog of the series for Mental Health Awareness week on the theme of kindness, Professor Trudie Chalder talks about how we can learn from Commitment and Acceptance theory to help us be kind during this time."

https://www.kcl.ac.uk/the-importance-of-kindness-during-covid-19
However, there is quite a difference between performative kindness and genuine kindness. The former can hide unbelievable suffering and cruelty when used as a weapon. Quite like lying to someone in order to gain their trust and lie more effectively to them.

It's possible to simulate the appearance of such emotions, not its substance. It always comes off wrong to keen observers, which Chalder is not.
 
I'm having a hard time deciding whether this is a low-effort content mill or a serious article.

Covid-19 Fatigue Syndrome: Finding the Unknown and Unknowable

https://pro.psychcentral.com/covid-19-fatigue-syndrome-finding-the-unknown-and-unknowable/
COVID-19 Fatigue Syndrome (C-19FS) is a biopsychosocial descriptor that identifies a range of individual experiences that magnifies vulnerabilities into a variety of life stressors. C-19FS is composed of three phases: primary, secondary and tertiary. Identifying at-risk populations and assessing biopsychosocial functionality is essential to working in population mental health services.
COVID-19 Fatigue Syndrome (C-19FS) is composed of three phases. The first is Primary C-19FS and is related to the natural reoccurring cycle of infectious and communicable disease. Individuals may become more vigilant as reports of pending communicable diseases in their community are developing (even a common flu season) and they re-experience their individual previous involvement with COVID-19.

Taking in consideration all world-wide events, the population is developed differing perspectives of the personal/societal impact of communicable diseases. Many voiced that sheltering in-place and social distancing is the better universal approach to protection. Others voiced fervent opinions in resentment that became more intensified as the number of cases and deaths changed and local authorities and pundits required the population to comply to restrictive directives.

During this primary phase, some of the biopsychosocial feelings that individuals may re-experience include: fatigue, trouble initiating or maintain sleep, chest pain, shortness of breath, tightness in the throat, palpations, and anxiousness.
Secondary C-19FS spans the time that a seasonal event, epidemic or pandemic is officially designated. This becomes a time of sensory overload. The basic human response of flight-flight-freeze are heightened. During this time, individuals are faced with the reality that life is always in flux.

Thoughts and emotions become overpowering and people find themselves functioning on “auto-pilot.” For many, this is difficult because of the fear of isolation, loss of self-agency, and for those who have not recovered from the last event, it becomes very disheartening. If the crisis goes on for any extended length of time, family relationships are stressed, economic resources are strained, and the impact becomes even more profound for the socially vulnerable. Once again, daily routines and relationships are disrupted, burdened, and compounded.

During the secondary phase, some of the biopsychosocial feeling individuals may experience include: anger, irritability, panic meaninglessness, and apathy.
Tertiary C-19FS is a more lasting experiential process. The central issues during this phase is that of control. Individuals’ ability to have a sense of influence in their life circumstance is diminished. Following a large population communicable disease event, there will be numerous forces at work. Previous community-based resources and providers may be limited or no longer in existence.

It is not easy to capture and define a specific term that actually captures the span of variable human experiences in a post COVID-19 world. However, the biopsychological functionality of a population may be conceived not just in terms of hard and fast categorical terms (depression, anxiety, etc.) but may be more reflected as a continuum where the individual’s life is livable and doable, thus C-19FS.
Serious or satire? I really can't tell.
 
Says who? The significance of sampling in mental health surveys during COVID-19
A position paper1 in The Lancet Psychiatry highlights that “an immediate priority is collecting high-quality data on the mental health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic across the whole population and vulnerable groups”.
Instead, the desire for quick information has driven the rapid propagation of online surveys using non-probability and convenience samples, some of which claim to be representative. Understandably, many are receiving widespread media attention. These early insights might be valuable, but we caution against relying on them to drive policy and resource because they are prone to substantial bias: acting on misleading information could be worse than having no information at all.
When determining the prevalence of the mental health effects of COVID-19, investigators should use rigorous methods that sample from the whole population to reduce erroneous conclusions and potentially damaging actions.
Cutting corners to provide quick, cheap answers will result in poorer quality evidence, poorer policy, and wasted resources in the longer term.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(20)30237-6/fulltext

hm; reads almost like a list of current practice in bPS research/treatments to me.
 
I guess the question is, would this . . .

We believe it is possible, and cost-effective, to generate high-quality evidence of mental health needs in the current crisis. We recommend using random sampling to reduce risk of bias, allow quantification of non-response, and permit valid statistical analysis. A major investigation into online survey panels
9
concluded that “Researchers should avoid nonprobability online panels when...[the] objective is to accurately estimate population values.” When determining the prevalence of the mental health effects of COVID-19, investigators should use rigorous methods that sample from the whole population to reduce erroneous conclusions and potentially damaging actions. This approach might be more expensive but is essential to gain reliable insights into how to mitigate psychological risks during this and future pandemics.

be adequate to ensure capture of quality data useful for developing informed strategies to help in these situation?

I don't know anything about this but it sounds kinda vague. Is that actually sufficient to yield quality data?
 
Haven't they already decided upon the conclusion that everyone, and their pets, is so traumatised by lockdown, and the total certainty of dying if they so much as look out of the window, that they must all be suffering from profitable mental health issues?

So now what they seem to be doing is designing studies to 'prove' this so as to get funding to prove it, and how essential and invaluable they are.
 
I would worry about other kinds of bias, for example in the questionnaires, communication with participants or how researchers will interpret the data. The researchers themselves may be completely unaware of the bias affecting these aspects.
 
I guess the question is, would this . . .



be adequate to ensure capture of quality data useful for developing informed strategies to help in these situation?

I don't know anything about this but it sounds kinda vague. Is that actually sufficient to yield quality data?
They can't even do that in normal times so this is either straight up delusional or a blatant scam, likely both. IAPT is a complete disaster and they've been working on that for years with zero oversight or pressure and it could not produce worse results. BPS has been around for decades and they can't even produce the lowest possible tier of evidence for anything.

That's what happens when you reward failure, it just breeds more failure and mediocrity.
 
Back
Top Bottom