Negative effect on human psychological mental health from quarantine and pandemic in 2020-th

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Negative effect on human psychological mental health from quarantine and pandemic in 2020-th

Introduction

The world may be divided onto two parts before and after quarantine in 2020, as everything that was build during the long time of 21-th century suddenly crashed. The world has changed in a few months and it's never going to be the same again.

The actualization of our research is really high, as the situation in the world is getting worth every day, the quantity of infected people in the world rising with the high speed, and as long as this situation will take place the psychological mental healthiness will be under attack of unexpected circumstances and fears.

“Our society is definitely in a collective state of trauma,” said Jonathan Porteus, PhD, a licensed clinical psychologist who oversees the crisis and suicide hotline in Sacramento, CA. Unlike posttraumatic stress disorder, which surfaces after a trauma has ended, the country is only starting to grapple with the pandemic's psychological fallout, he said.

According to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll, more than half of Americans - 56% -reported that worry or stress related to the outbreak has led to at least one negative mental health effect. Those include trouble with eating or sleeping, drinking alcohol more, frequent headaches or stomachaches, shorter tempers, and other health problems. Among frontline health care workers and their families, 64% reported worsened mental health, as did 65% of those who had lost income.

Another recent report, released Friday from the Well Being Trust, said the pandemic could lead to 75,000 additional “deaths of despair” from drug and alcohol misuse and suicide due to unemployment, social isolation, and fears about the virus.

All of this caused this research to find a way to prevent the further development of psychological imbalance in society and to anticipate the deterioration of the situation up to a total collapse.

Let's just remember how it all started.

The first human cases of COVID-19 were identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. At this stage it is not possible to determine precisely how humans in China were initially infected with SARS-CoV-2. Furthermore, some developments may become known or fully understood only in retrospect. The World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on 30 January 2020, and a pandemic on 11 March 2020.* (Wikipedia). Started from that date one by one countries closed boarders and minimized the international flights. While one day we found ourselves feeling like all that was before pandemic was a dream, and traveling become something inconceivable.

Can we expect that there will be no influence on psychological mental health on people in such world crashing situation? Absolutely not. All that was matters to all of a humankind during the known period of civilization is freedom.

Freedom to walk outside of the house, to decide for ourselves whether or not put a mask on one's face, taking a long walk in the parks and streets, meeting our friends and even to have an opportunity to work in the office close to other people and not to be scared to get into a restricted infected area.

And if at the very beginning it was something, that felt like it will pass soon and all of the science in the world will definitely find the way to defeat the virus, facing the truth after 3 month of quarantine that it is a worldwide trouble which is out of control now, gave us understanding and acceptance that it will not pass that easy and it will touch each and every one on the planet. It is our new reality.

The main reason for that research, you reading now, is to determine the exact influence on mental health of the people and find what can governments do for its citizens to reduce the negative impact of the pandemic and the subsequent restrictions on people's freedoms.

1. What Is Psychological Mental Health?

Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act. It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make choices. Mental health is important at every stage of life, from childhood and adolescence through adulthood.

While we are living it is impossible to be stable all the time, and as to the answer to the different stimulus your psyche is reacting and changing to adapt to the new circumstances appeared. If such changes happened to take a long and calm time to become the new part of your personality, then the person will have more chances to get over it without any problems. Because you have enough time to realize and accept the mutation in the mental sense of self-stability.

What is self-stability and why do we need it?

Self-stability it is the one of the most important part of well-being. Feeling of stability of life gives a person feeling that everything is good and safe and it gives him or her a right to think about achieving higher pleasures.

John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 - 7 May 1873),usually cited as J. S. Mill, was an English philosopher, political economist, and civil servant. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of classical liberalism, he contributed widely to social theory, political theory, and political economy. Dubbed "the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the nineteenth century", he conceived of liberty as justifying the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state and social control.

According to J.S. Mill higher pleasures are those pleasures that requires some minimum of cognitive capacities to enjoy. More specifically, higher pleasures are intellectual pleasures while lower pleasures are sensual pleasures. Mill argues that animals are not capable of experiencing higher pleasures because animals are not aware of their higher facilities; animals lack the conscious ability to be curious, to achieve a sense of self-worth from volunteering, or to hold a deep and intellectual conversation.

As we can see there is a lower pleasures, that we can call natural pleasures such as food and feeling of safety of life, that gives us feeling of comfort and stable life and it is a base to construct the higher feeling of happiness through higher pleasures, such as intellectual and moral achievements. If, for example, you are hungry and homeless for some period of your life, there is a little chance that you will choose opera or viewing a gorgeous painting in Louvre instead of having a food and shelter, especially if your kids are with you.

This theory of Mill's higher and lower pleasures also supported by Maslow's theory that called Hierarchy of Needs.

The physiological need is a concept that was derived to explain and cultivate the foundation for motivation by Maslow. This concept is the main physical requirement for human survival. This means that physiological needs are universal human needs. Physiological needs are considered in internal motivation according to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. This theory states that humans are compelled to fulfill these physiological needs first to pursue intrinsic satisfaction on a higher level. If these needs are not achieved, it leads to an increase in displeasure within an individual. In return, when individuals feel this increase in displeasure, the motivation to decrease these discrepancies increases. Physiological needs can be defined as both traits and a state. Physiological needs as traits allude to long-term, unchanging demands that are required of basic human life. Physiological needs as a state allude to the unpleasant decrease in pleasure and the increase for an incentive to fulfill a necessity. To pursue intrinsic motivation higher up Maslow's hierarchy, Physiological needs must be met first. This means that if a human is struggling to meet their physiological needs, then they are unlikely to intrinsically pursue safety, belongingness, esteem, and self-actualization.

2. What quarantine is and how does it affects on modern society?

A quarantine is a delimitation on the free movement of citizens and commodities which is designated to avoid the spread of disease or pests. Oftentimes used in connection to ailment and disease, avoiding the movement of those who may have been exposed to a communicable ailment, but do not have a confirmed medical diagnosis. It differs from medical isolation, as the last one requires confirmed medical diagnosis of illness and should be total isolated from the healthy population. Quarantine considerations are often one aspect of border control.

We can notice that, not only inside the countries quarantine happened to appear, one by one countries decided to isolate their territory one from another. Then all businesses were transferred to a new way of working, suddenly everything become online, even studies and all that could work on the distance shifted to the new era of digital world. Eventually the systems were not ready to such a quick shifting, and faced many problems, servers could not stand the loadof the quantity of users, at first the world was plunged into seemingly insoluble problems. Once all possible power was set to solve the formed poser, another side of such transit become visible, because of getting everything online there was no need in renting large offices, and as follows to clean, manage, secure, service and renovate it. It caused another problem -unemployment.

Unemployment, according to the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development), is persons above a specified age (usually 15) not being in paid employment or self-employment but currently available for work during the reference period.

Please revise the world chart of unemployment rate below:

Fig. 1. Link for the chart: https://data.oecd.org/chart/62P5

This chart is drawing us a real view to the crisis situation all over the world, if all rates were approximately the same from July 2018 till February 2020, after the quarantine was set, the rates rise up fast.

If we look close at the rates in USA, normally the unemployment rate was normally 3,8% by the April 2020 its rise up to 14,7%, which is 3,8 times higher then it was 2 months before. For EOCD and G7 the growth of this indicator is close to 2times higher in the comparison with the same period with USA. Euro area and Japan reacted had a low reaction for the new circumstances in the world.

Can we expect that, if a lot of people lost their job, not able to walk outside and communicate with the other people, and if to add the risk to get infected, to be set on the medical quarantine, isolated from the family and society, and probably be dead because of virus, none will escape from the phycological disorders and depression in its different forms and levels? It is almost impossible to get over with it without having any stress, and one stress leads another one, as everything in the world is connecting to each other. quarantine mental physiological social

The level of dissatisfaction against the background of problems with work, layoffs, lack of communication, risk to life, being in a confined space, not being able to take a break from his family, which is now constantly nearby, leads to an increase in tension within society and manifests itself in protests and dissatisfaction with the authorities. The government loses its strength and respect in the eyes of society, since it cannot solve the situation that has arisen and is powerlessly trying to cope with the problem by restricting the rights and freedoms of individuals.

Protests, unemployment and dissatisfaction in the society leads to a problem in the countries, as a lot of people now need a financial help from government, small businesses are also should be provided with a special condition in loans return, financial support, together with economic problems that have touched every country in the world.

Its not that easy to solve all the problems in the world, but the main reason for this research is to find what can be done for the society to support the psychological mental health and relieve the stress accumulated during the pandemic and quarantine.

After searching for the information what can be done to reduce the stress, many recommendations were found. They all described what a person can do for himself in order to get out of a stress, to stop being overloaded and depressed. Our main aim was to define what governments can do for their citizens to help them pass through this difficult time with minimum distress.

The first problem that we are facing now is the limitations in communication of people who have got used to be active and build relationships and mood through the prism of communication. Thanks to the era of IT technologies that allow us, regardless of the circumstances, to continue work and study from anywhere in the world, but nevertheless, live communication cannot be replaced. The first recommendation is the creation of free platforms for communication, such as Zoom, expanding the capabilities of these platforms and possibly of using the virtual reality glasses as an option.

Those people who have already passed the disease have undergone an incredible test, a lot of the people still experience fear of death and even afraid to sleep. Loss of the sleep also having a very detrimental effect on a person's ability to experience stress more sustainably. It is necessary to provide people with free distance psychological assistance, as well as all kinds of medications, if it is necessary.

There is a lot of research studies that confirm a positive effect of an active lifestyle on the health of people. Because of the accelerated substitution of substances in the body, active sport evens out the level of stress due to the more active removal of stress hormones and increases the production of the hormone of happiness- endorphin, which in turn has a positive effect on the entire body, helps in restoration of the psychological balance of the individual.

The organization of free group sports events will also help to solve the first described problem- communication. Subject to safety rules, conducting group activities on the open air will improve the physical and psychological condition of a person.

Another problem is the loss of a job during the quarantine, the lack of livelihood will inevitably lead to severe stress and nervousness, and in the presence of mass layoffs, anxiety in society.

The development of the state online studying platform for the citizens, providing jobs for the ones who had a successful completion, will also solve more than one problem, increase the intellectual level of the population, and hence the level of studying and reduce unemployment.

Apropos informing of the society will help to understand the essence of the problem, will also give the required level of confidence.

In conclusion, I would like to note that all the prescribed measures are aimed to support society by its government in order to improve the psychological stability and resistance to stress. Stress makes it difficult to look at the situation soberly, reduces concentration and allows you to get under the influence, which in large quantities can lead to various unforeseen situations in society.

References

1) https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200508/mental-health-emerging-crisis-of-covid-pandemic

2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_COVID-19_pandemic

3) https://www.mentalhealth.gov/basics/what-is-mental-health#:~:text=Mental%20health%20includes%20our%20emotional%2C%20psychological%2C%20and%20social,of%20life%2C%20from%20childhood%20and%20adolescence%20through%20adulthood.

4) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill

5) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs

6) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment

7) https://data.oecd.org/chart/62P5

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