Mental Health in Pandemia Increases Anxiety and Fear

In an interview for KosovoPress, the director of the Mental Health Centre in Pristina, indicates that patients are beginning to re-acrash in the pandemic at the time.

Our “Institutions have not yet seriously understood the matter of mental health and COVID-19. Since I've had it, people who've been through the disease are very traumatized. We're talking about acute trauma because it's still pandemic, it's still the disease developing, the risk is still too big for those who haven't been infected. As for the patients in the centre, we deal with the cases of chronic psychiatric patients, but I notice that recently patients have started reaccuring”, he says.

Neuropscuater Sami Rexhepi shows that the number of patients who receive services at this center at the time of pandemic has increased, and the same is showing signs of increased anxiety.

It shows that the biggest problem at this time is fear.

And our number of customers is generally growing, and other customers who are not chronic psychiatrically ill who receive services at the center, even though we are too limited to offer services, are showing signs of intense anxiety, but the biggest problem is fear. Fear is on both sides, even among those who have passed the disease, especially if they have had a more severe symptoms, if they have had a respiratory problem or have been in oxygen therapy is a tremendous fear. And the rest that haven't been through yet is like the nightmare of waiting, as you're waiting when you're about to come, he says.

He says support from nearby people is key to patients who overcome the fight with COVID-19.

Because of what I see as acute trauma, because we're still in the pandemic, this is acute trauma I can't talk about a post traumatic stress disorder, that those manifestations will be much more later. Then people will have a very powerful reaction, perhaps even in simple coolings, because it is a very serious experience during the passage of this period, it remains, then it will be synonymous, and any mere cooling we will get much more dramatic”, Rexhepi explains.

Rexhepi says the biggest problem is that people in Kosovo have not taken the situation created by the pandemic very seriously, and that the advice coming from health institutions is being taken as a restrictive measure, not as a need for protection.

Neuropsichiatri ordered that mental - health care be kept safe.

And our biggest problem as a society is that we think of mental health at the moment of various tragedies, then we say it's been sick and it's done, it hasn't been treated, it tells us that we as a society are not willing first to accept the mental health problem, we need to be aware of and understand that there's a problem in mental health, and what's the way to help and get over, to heal or to soften the”, Rexhepi says.

According to him, it is the last moment for awareness of the matter of mental health and the same understanding that it is part of general health.

This is something that needs to be continuous, to understand as oral health, or even if someone who wants to be cautious about their appearance. We don't give a shit about financial, or time, going to fix our hair, an hour and two, and pay for 50 or 100 euros, but when it's a mental health question, we think someone is watching us and what they think of us. All we can and should think about right now is to get someone who has the guts to deal with himself and overcome problems before it got big, he says.

Since March, the Mental Health Centre in Pristina has taken no daily stance, wanting to prevent the spread of infection, but has never been closed and has continued working long hours.

In April, this centre has opened calls for citizens who feel disorders and need advice and treatment, which was completed in June following the release of the measures.

Neuropsichiatri Sami Rexhepi orders that people who begin to feel different disorders like anxiety, sleep disorder, heavy dreams, and other concerns seek professional help.