Psychoeducation as an integral component of psychotherapeutic support for patients with COVID-19

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic is the first pandemic in world history that unfolds in the context of the existence of social networks. And therefore, it is accompanied by unprecedented panic, the consequences of which can significantly worsen the own consequences of COVID-19. No one is spared stress during a pandemic, but the most vulnerable to it, are the elderly, children and adolescents, medical workers, and, as sad as it sounds, people with mental illnesses will have to pay the highest price. A comprehensive clinical-psychopathological and psychodiagnostic examination of 125 patients with COVID-19 with non-psychotic mental disorders (68 women and 57 men) with an average age (36.0±3.4) years was conducted. As shown by the results of the clinical-psychopathological study, the clinical picture of non-psychotic mental disorders in the examined patients is represented by depressive, anxious, astheno-neurotic and cognitive syndromes. Taking into account the data obtained during the comprehensive examination on the psychological, pathopsychological, and clinical-psychopathological features of patients with COVID-19, a model of personalized psychotherapeutic support for patients who suffered from COVID-19 was developed, which includes psychotherapy and psychoeducation. According to the results of the study, against the background of the use of psychoeducational programs in the structure of psychotherapeutic support for patients with COVID-19, positive dynamics of the mental state, a decrease in the expressiveness of anxiety-depressive symptoms were noted in the examined patients; positive transformation of coping strategies; the transition of non-constructive types of attitude to the disease into adaptive, constructive ones. Regarding the dynamics of patients’ attitude to disease against background of treatment – types of attitude have changed, which consists in increasing the indicators of harmonious and ergopathic types of attitude to the disease.

Keywords: mental disorders, coronavirus infection 2019-nCoV, psychotherapy, coping strategies, features of patients with COVID-19.