Needs, gaps and opportunities for standard and e-mental health care among at-risk populations in the Asia Pacific in the context of COVID-19: A rapid scoping review
By: Jill K. Murphy, Amna Khan, Qiumeng Sun, Harry Minas, Simon Hatcher, Chee H. Ng, Mellissa Withers, Andrew Greenshaw, Erin E. Michalak, Promit Ananyo Chakraborty, Karen Sharmini Sandanasamy, Nurashikin Ibrahim, Arun Ravindran, Jun Chen, Vu Cong Nguyen & Raymond W. Lam
APEC Members, “APEC: Trade Accelerator in the Asia-Pacific and Beyond”, Hinrich Foundation, 2019, https://www.hinrichfoundation.com/research/tradevistas/ftas/apec-trade/
In March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) a global pandemic. It is expected that this will have a major impact on people’s mental health. Because of the pandemic, many providers have had to switch to virtual tools to deliver care. As such, we have to consider what equitable access to these virtual tools looks like for patients that are most at risk of having mental health problems.
To address this, we completed a scoping review that focuses on the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) region. In this review, we identified:
Who is most at risk of experience negative mental health outcomes because of COVID-19
Needs and barriers to accessing traditional and virtual mental health care in these populations
How virtual care models can address some of these needs
A total of a 132 papers were included in our analysis and identified the following primary groups as being at high-risk of mental health problems due to COVID-19:
People who already have mental health, neurological, and substance use disorders
Healthcare workers
Children and youth
Black, Indigenous, and people of colour (BIPOC) populations
Older adults
The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that virtual mental health care is a viable option for delivering mental health care; however, issues of accessibility and acceptability must be taken into consideration to ensure equal and fair access for all. It is crucial to also offer in-person, hybrid, or “low tech” care options.
To read this article in full, visit: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-021-01484-5.