TY - JOUR T1 - Expert consensus on the prevention and treatment of substance use and addictive behaviour-related disorders during the COVID-19 pandemic JF - General Psychiatry JO - Gen Psych DO - 10.1136/gpsych-2020-100252 VL - 33 IS - 4 SP - e100252 AU - Jiang Du AU - Ni Fan AU - Min Zhao AU - Wei Hao AU - Tieqiao Liu AU - Lin Lu AU - Jie Shi AU - Haifeng Jiang AU - Na Zhong AU - Xiaochang Lan AU - Shichao Xu AU - Hongxian Chen AU - Xiaojun Xiang AU - Xuyi Wang AU - Hongqiang Sun AU - Bing Li AU - Yu-Ping Ning AU - Jing Li AU - Wanjun Guo AU - Yajuan Niu AU - Lixia Sheng AU - Yi Li AU - Xuebin Liu AU - Xuhui Zhou AU - Mincai Qian AU - Wenhua Zhou AU - Ruiling Zhang AU - Hongxing Hu AU - Yan Xia AU - Zhonghua Su AU - Ruimin Zhang AU - Mei Yang AU - Fen Liu AU - Wei Yuan Y1 - 2020/08/01 UR - http://gpsych.bmj.com/content/33/4/e100252.abstract N2 - In early 2020, the COVID-19 outbreak complicated the diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation of patients with substance use disorders and increased the risks of substance abuse and addictive behaviours, such as online gaming disorders, in the general public. Substance use disorder is a chronic recurrent brain disease characterised by strong cravings, high recurrence rates, and a high proportion of comorbidity of mental and physical disorders.1 Therefore, regular long-term therapeutic interventions are critical to preventing drug relapses while maintaining withdrawal.COVID-19 severely affects normal medical diagnoses, treatments and managements of patients with substance use disorder coupled with addiction-related behaviour. It also adversely impacts the mental state of the general public in several ways and leads to broader symptoms, including anxiety, tension and insomnia, that may increase the risk of alcohol abuse, sedative and hypnotic drug abuse, and other addictive behaviours.The State Council’s Comprehensive Team for Joint Prevention and Control of COVID-19 released a series of documents to address the importance of focusing on the prevention and control of both imported cases and internal transmission in particularly vulnerable places, such as supervision sites, pension facilities, welfare homes and mental health institutions.2 3 It is also of utmost importance to ensure the continuous, regular and effective treatment of existing patients with addiction problems, reduce the risk of drug relapse and prevent new cases of addiction during the pandemic.To this end, the Chinese Association of Drug Abuse Prevention and Treatment, the Academic Group of Drug Dependence of the Chinese Society of Psychiatry, the Academic Group of Addiction of the Chinese Society of Psychosomatic Medicine, and the Specialty Committee of Addiction Medicine of the Chinese Psychiatrist Association jointly published an expert consensus to inform the public with proper guidance to prevent addiction and provide professional diagnoses, treatment and management of these addictions. … ER -