[Symposium 54] Sharing of Impactful Research Findings from Highly Cited Researchers in the field of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience in Asia

[SY-54-02] The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health – a psychoneuroimmunological perspective

*Roger Ho (National University of Singapore(Singapore))

Keywords:

COVID-19,Depression,Anxiety,Burnout,Immunological

The COVID-19 pandemic provides a golden opportunity to conduct the psycho-neuro-immunological research. In 2020, Professor Roger Ho led the China team to conduct one of the first COVID-19 mental health studies (53.8% of respondents rated the psychological impact of the outbreak as moderate or severe; 16.5% reported moderate to severe depressive symptoms; 28.8% reported moderate to severe anxiety symptoms; and 8.1% reported moderate to severe stress levels). Then he worked with international collaborators and studied the impact on healthcare workers (5.3% screened positive for moderate to very-severe depression; 8.7% for moderate to extremely-severe anxiety, 2.2% for moderate to extremely-severe stress). Prof Ho conducted comparative studies and found that the use of face masks was a protective factor for mental health in China but not in Western countries. Professor Ho was able to connect US and Chinese researchers to conduct a cross-country comparison despite political differences. His study found that Americans reported more physical symptoms, contact history, and perceived likelihood of contracting COVID-19. Americans also reported more stress and depressive symptoms, while the Chinese reported higher acute-traumatic stress symptoms. For psychiatric patients, more than one-third fulfilled the diagnostic criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and more than one-quarter suffered from moderately severe to severe insomnia. Psychiatric patients also showed high acceptance and willingness to pay for the COVID-19 vaccine. Similarly, COVID-19 patients reported a higher psychological impact of the outbreak than psychiatric patients and healthy controls, with half of them having clinically significant symptoms of PTSD. Functional neuroimaging studies found that past COVID-19 infection may not affect frontotemporal cortex function. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, Prof Ho and his research team developed COVID-19 Burnout Views Scale. The relationship among COVID-19 infection, psychiatric symptoms and inflammatory responses will be discussed in this seminar.