CORONAPHOBIA AND PSYCHIC DISORDERS EMERGING IN THE PANDEMIC: AN INTEGRATIVE LITERATURE REVIEW

Abstract

The pandemic of the new coronavirus (COVID-19) is a public health emergency that affects not only Brazil, but the entire international community. The affliction related to the evils that this virus brings goes far beyond physical health, as it has also shown damage to the mental health of much of the population, through increased psychological suffering and the emergence of psychiatric pathologies, which are accompanied by coronaphobia. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to describe coronaphobia as a psychiatric disorder emerging in the pandemic, identifying the clinical picture, the psychiatric illnesses most associated with it, the most affected class and possible forms of prevention. METHODOLOGY: This is an integrative literature review, descriptive, retrospective and qualitative in which the Scielo, Medscape and PubMed databases were used. The following words were applied as Health Science Descriptors (DeCS): “Pandemia of covid 19” and “Coronaphobia”19 and its impact on the mental health of Brazilians. For the results, 72 publications were presented in the researched databases, of which 17 were selected for reading, and from these and to compose this article. RESULTS AND DISCOURSIOS: The results indicate that during the pandemic of COVID-19 there was the phenomenon of coronaphobia linked to the rise of psychiatric illnesses, the most frequent being depression, generalized anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and panic syndrome. This link, according to scientific research, has been reported more often in females and young adults. Therefore, forms of prevention are extremely important, in order to avoid the onset of these disorders, for example, establishing a daily routine, healthy eating, and doing physical exercises. CONCLUSION: It was observed that coronaphobia can be associated with psychiatric illnesses, whether they are previous or not in the individual; furthermore, prophylactic actions are feasible and effective in an attempt to avoid or reduce the impact of coronaphobia on mental health in society.