CBT-Vaccination: A Public Health Approach to Support the Impact of COVID-19 on Mental Health and Wellbeing

摘要

A mental health “echo-pandemic” is unfolding as the short and long term physical and mental health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic continue unabated across the globe. The mental health effects are felt at the general population level through COVID’s impact on the education and healthcare systems, the economy as well as increased psychiatric symptoms in vulnerable groups and fatigue and burn-out in front-line workers. As children and adolescents head back to classes, parents worry about adequate safety measures and a second wave of new infections on the one hand while weighing the impact of social isolation on their children’s development on the other. In this letter we propose Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Vaccination (CBT-V) as a strategy that integrates COVID-related public health measures with the best evidence-based psychological intervention.