Connection of Suicidal Behavior with COVID-19: Clinical Cases

Abstract

The spread of the coronavirus infection has led to significant changes in people’s lives. Prolonged isolation, fear of infection, frustration, changing the usual stereotype life style, lack of information, loss of revenues, and fear of stigmatization, as well as the disease itself have all influenced people’s emotional and physical well-being. The impact of the viral infection itself on the human body, as well as the perception of a new reality, in some cases led to the formation of reactive, organic, or the exacerbation of existing chronic mental disorders. People with mental health problems are most susceptible to environmental influences and react acutely to rapidly changing circumstances. Often in critical situations, in a state of despair, patients see only one way to solve all problems — voluntary retirement committing taking own life. In this article, we present clinical cases that are descriptive in nature and are intended to illustrate the connection between depressive experiences and suicidal behavior amongst patients in a crisis situation when external circumstances were the reason for suicide attempts: loneliness as a result of restrictive measures, fear of infection or the disease itself, and the reason was a mental disorder that debuted earlier or re–emerged as a result of a viral infection. We have presented three clinical cases. All patients suffered from a new coronavirus infection of various severities and were treated in a psychiatric hospital, where they were transferred from an infectious diseases hospital or hospitalized directly in connection with suicidal actions. In each case, attention was paid to the organizational measures carried out, with an emphasis on the need for earlier screening of mental disorders, prevention of suicidal behavior in providing assistance to this contingent, and the development of the interaction between general medical and psychiatric services by the type of integrative care. The study is of interest to a wide range of specialists providing care to patients with COVID-19 or similar pathologies.

Keywords

suicide attempt / COVID-19 / new coronavirus infection / mental disorders / psychiatric hospital

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RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

Prokopovich G.A.