22
TAMIL NADU ASSOCIATION OF CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGISTS (TNACP)
RESPONDING TO COVID-19 PANDEMIC
DR. N. SURESH KUMAR
Assistant Professor in Clinical Psychology, Madurai Medical College, Madurai
SRINIVASAN JAYARAMAN
Assistant Professor in Clinical Psychology, SRM University
DR. K. RANGASWAMY
Visiting Professor, Institute of Mental Health, Chennai
The Tamil Nadu Association of Clinical Psychologists has been in existence since 1970. After a brief hiatus, it was revived in 2014 and has been active since then. The Covid-19 pandemic has been another opportunity for the association to rally together and take action.
The Context
Even though the current situation has given us a lot of distress, it has also strengthened the unity among all the Clinical Psychologists across various parts of the state and nation as a whole to work as a team in maintaining and providing better mental health to the people in our respective communities.
The Strategic Plan - The Mental Health Task Force
When the pandemic began to spread in India, the Executive Committee of TNACP acted proactively and initiated multiple online meetings among the TNACP members to mobilize a plan for helping the public through tele-counselling service. All the members were consulted on their willingness and availability in volunteering to counsel the needy individuals. This paved the way to start the “TNACP Mental Health Task Force” group for COVID-19 by getting formal permission from the State Mental Health Authority, Secretary, Department of Health and Family Welfare and Commissioner of Social Defence, Tamil Nadu.
The helpline list with the contact numbers of volunteers was circulated through television broadcasting in various channels across the state through news, advertisements, pamphlets and also by TNACP members through their personal social media accounts. The calls started coming in from within the state and also from other parts of India. We received calls from clients with symptoms of anxiety, depression, conflicting relationships, domestic violence and many more, including those who were seeking help to get to their home state during the initial period of lockdown when moving from one locality to another was restricted.
Moreover, we also received calls from the general public about doubts and clarifications regarding the lockdown, transportation availability, helping stranded people near their locality, and so on. Our professionals not only acknowledged these calls but also provided them with the nearest possible helplines.
The Service Provided and Observations
The people who sought help were given initial counseling through telephone and if the therapist found the client’s symptom to be severe, they were asked to get help from the nearest Government Hospitals. The data regarding the details of the clients who contacted the professionals was recorded in a Google form by the respective therapist who took the call and further details were maintained confidentially by the secretary of TNACP. We are happy to mention that up to May 31, 2020, we were able to help around 200 clients, who had mental health issues, through our tele-services.
Out of 200 distress callers, 63% were male and 37% were female, between ages 13 to 70 years, of which 53% were professionals, 24% were homemakers, 7% were businessmen, 5% were students and 11% were other professionals. Majority of distress callers (84%) were living with their family members and 16% were living alone. It has to be highlighted that 25% of the distress callers had a past history of psychiatric illness, 9% of callers had a history of substance abuse, 5% had family history of psychiatric illness and 4% had suicidal ideas. There were people who sought our support on a continuing basis and around 10% of the callers were advised 3 to 5 follow up sessions.
Majority of the distress calls (91%) were from those who were distressed and 9% were primary caregivers or significant family carers. The influence of social media in reaching out to the public was evident as 62% of distress callers got to know about our services through various social media. The remaining 20% knew about our services through television scrolling and 18 % of distress callers were informed about our services through their friends and significant family members.
The common mental health problems observed was COVID-19 related anxiety, mild depression, stress and obsessive-compulsive symptoms, negative thoughts, stress, dullness, rumination, financial crisis, sleep disturbances, crying spells, aggression, loneliness, worry about spouses who were living abroad, fear that they may become a carrier of COVID-19, reduced work performance, doubt that an existing T.B and Asthma condition may lead to COVID-19, concern about using excessive cleaning materials and withdrawal symptoms related to substance abuse. Women, who were homemakers, reported increased stress and interpersonal difficulties, increased workload and lack of personal space.
Children and students were worried about their academic challenges and anxiety about uncertainty related to their future academic pursuits. Some were restless and irritable and others felt lonely because of being stuck at home or lacked interest in academic activities. There were some who felt dependent on social media and cell phones and parental abuses were also reported.
The commonly employed intervention strategies were psycho education, ventilation, reassurance, supportive psychotherapy, interpersonal psychotherapy, problem solving skills, Cognitive Behavioural Therapeutic Techniques and study skills.
Media
Many working professionals in the hospital and academic sectors went beyond their regular work schedules in writing and publishing articles in newspapers, online blogs, and personal interviews in the mass media and also through conducting webinars to provide the public with a better understanding of the Psychological Mental Health in relation to the pandemic situation.
Continuing Professional Development-
We as professionals also had the zeal to make use of this lockdown period more productive, by learning and updating our skills through daily learning via webinars. To equip our members to provide telecounseling sessions, we collaborated with TISS Mumbai, iCALL team trained our members for telecounseling skills. The TNACP started conducting the webinar series from April 11th 2020 and successfully completed 50 webinars as on 20/06/2020. These programs were delivered by eminent speakers from all over India and included a wide range of trending topics in the field of clinical psychology and behavioural medicine.
Until the month of May 2020, we had provision for accommodating only a maximum of 100 participants. Encouraged by the attendance and efficiency of these academic programs, the TNACP was prompted to continue the webinar series with increased provision to accommodate 500 participants, to include students and Clinical Psychologists from various institutions in India. We hope that the Rehabilitation Council of India will assign CRE points for the attendance of these webinars and further encourage the professionals to update themselves.
Guiding Future Psychologists
The most recent initiative of TNACP has been to organize a webinar for post graduate students of Psychology to orient them to the field of Clinical Psychology, to show them new avenues in this field, and to guide them in preparing for the M.Phil. Clinical Psychology entrance examination. A Webinar was conducted for this purpose with eminent clinical psychologists working in both government and private sectors and in other countries, who interacted with the students.
Lessons Learnt
We hope to continue this work together as a team in the coming days to provide effective mental health services to the society.