Requirements of Mental Health Services during the COVID-19 Outbreak: A Systematic Review

Background: After the outbreak of a new viral disease in Wuhan, China in late December 2019, in a very short period of time, because the speed of the virus spread, it became a global pandemic. Benefitting from the principles and methods of systematic review, present paper discuss on requirements of Mental Health Services during the COVID-19 Outbreak. Methods: A comprehensive search conducted through the international data bases of PubMed and NLM Gateway (for MEDLINE), Institute of Scientific Information (ISI), and Scopus. Psych info and CINAHL data banks were also searched. The main roots for development of search strategy developed based on the key words of “Covid”, “mental health”, “care”, “services”. All relevant studies were included without any limitation of publication time or language of papers. As it was not possible to conduct a formal systematic review given the nature of the publications, it was instead decided to conduct a mixed systematic and complementary narrative review covers different interested domains. Results: From total 80 papers, after excluding of duplications, 58 papers were introduced into the refinement process. Three steps of refining based on the titles; abstracts and full texts led to data extraction from 4 eligible papers. Considering the importance of problem, relevant findings, key points and research outcomes summarized under the main components of infrastructure and resources; policy making for at risk groups; different approaches in providing require services, indirect platforms for providing mental health services; follow-up attentions and complementary researches. The main results of study emphasized that many studies that have looked at the consequences of physical aspects and diagnostic symptoms. In such cases, aspects of mental health have been either less visible or neglected. In the scope of mental health consequences, immediate attention and priority of intensive programs to assess mental health, preparation for support, treatment and prevention services are emphasized. Conclusion: During implementation of mental health interventions, in order to improve services, in addition to considering the limitations and challenges of implementing programs, it is necessary to pay attention to the attitudes of target groups and their preferences.