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Correspondence
COVID-19 mental health care toolkit: an international collaborative effort by Early Career Psychiatrists section
  1. Frances Adiukwu1,
  2. Laura Orsolini2,
  3. Drita Gashi Bytyçi3,
  4. Samer El Hayek4,
  5. Jairo M Gonzalez-Diaz5,
  6. Amine Larnaout6,
  7. Paolo Grandinetti7,
  8. Marwa Nofal8,
  9. Victor Pereira-Sanchez9,
  10. Mariana Pinto da Costa10,11,12,
  11. Ramdas Ransing13,
  12. Andre Luiz Schuh Teixeira14,
  13. Mohammadreza Shalbafan15,
  14. Joan Soler-Vidal16,
  15. Zulvia Syarif17,
  16. Ganesh Kudva Kundadak18 and
  17. Rodrigo Ramalho19
  1. 1Department of Neuropsychiatry, University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital, Choba, Rivers, Nigeria
  2. 2Department of Clinical Neurosciences/DIMSC, School of Medicine, Polytechnic University of Marche, Ancona, Marche, Italy
  3. 3Mental Health Center Prizren, Hospital and University Clinical Service of Kosovo, Prizren, Kosovo
  4. 4Department of Psychiatry, American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon
  5. 5CERSAME, School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universidad del Rosario-Clinica Nuestra Senora de la Paz, Bogota, Colombia
  6. 6Psychiatry Department D, Razi Hospital, faculty of Medicine of Tunis, Tunis El Manar University, Tunis, Tunisia
  7. 7Addictions Service (SerD), Department of Territorial Assistance, ASL Teramo, Teramo, Italy
  8. 8Helwan Mental Health Hospital, Cairo, Egypt
  9. 9Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, New York, New York, USA
  10. 10Unit for Social and Community Psychiatry (WHO Collaborating Centre for Mental Health Services Development), Queen Mary University of London, London, UK
  11. 11Institute of Biomedical Sciences Abel Salazar, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal
  12. 12Hospital de Magalhaes Lemos, Porto, Portugal
  13. 13Department of Psychiatry, BKL Walawalkar Rural Medical College, Sawarde, Ratnagiri, India
  14. 14Department of Childhood and Adolescent Psychiatry, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil
  15. 15Mental Health Research Center, Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran (the Islamic Republic of)
  16. 16Fidmag Research Foundation, Hermanas Hospitalarias, Barcelona, Spain
  17. 17Department of Psychiatry, Tarakan General Hospital, Jakarta, Indonesia
  18. 18Early Psychosis Intervention Programme, Institute of Mental Health, Singapore
  19. 19Department of Social and Community Health, School of Populatin Health, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
  1. Correspondence to Dr Frances Adiukwu; francesadiukwu{at}gmail.com

Abstract

The collaborative effort of an international research team from the Early Career Psychiatrists section of the World Psychiatry Association has brought about an easy-to-use, quick and stepwise mental health care toolkit for the identification and appropriate referral of those in need of mental health care during the pandemic. This simple guide can be applied in the general outpatient setting and is catered for all healthcare professionals, regardless of their expertise within the mental health field with minimal training. It is our hope that by incorporating this toolkit into our daily clinical care during the pandemic for high-risk patients and patients with non-specific complaints, we will be able to bridge the mental health gap present in our society.

  • mental health services
  • depression
  • anxiety
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

https://doi.org/10.1136/gpsych-2020-100270

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    Footnotes

    • Twitter @franadiukwu

    • Correction notice The article has been corrected since it was published. The author name, Rodrigo Ramalho has been updated.

    • Contributors FNA developed the concept of this manuscript and discussed it with all coauthors (LO, DGB, SEH, JG-D, AL, PG, MN, VP-S, MPdC, RR, ALST, MS, JS-V, ZS, GKK, RDR). FNA wrote the initial draft and all coauthors edited and approved the final version for submission. FNA is responsible for the overall content of this paper.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent for publication Not required.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.