Main Manifestations of the Psychological and Behavioural Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Populations: A synthesis study

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic is said to be the first in the globalized period, having the following characteristics: global scale, extremely fast transmission speed, cross-effects of global inter-territorial interdependencies, resource management, and the complexity of the spatial organization of economic globalization (Jeanne et al., 2022).

The incidence of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic that induced COVID-19 syndrome is now extremely controversial. What is certain is that the virus produces a highly infectious form of atypical pneumonia (Chauhan, 2020). Covid-19 is thought to have initially arrived in the Wuhan region in November 2019, prior to global dissemination. Nevertheless, it was not until January 30, 2020, that the World Health Organization (WHO) reported the discovery of a virus and proclaimed a worldwide public health emergency. Finally, on March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the outbreak to be a pandemic (WTO, 2020).

The COVID-19 pandemic is part of a sequence of infectious disease emergence and re-emergence that has produced several significant outbreaks in recent decades, including the H5N1 flu in 1997 and 2005, SARS in 2003, H1N1 in 2009, MERS in 2012, and the Ebola outbreak since 2014. These epidemiological phenomena have been associated with community health hazards. This outbreak caused a twofold surprise: on the one hand, the advent of a novel pathology with a much too rapid spread. On the other hand, the discrediting of a paradigm that persisted throughout the twentieth century, according to which the global control of infectious phenomena and the forms of protection against health crises. In this hazardous environment, interest is placed on health resource management as well as countries' eventual reaction to the COVID-19 epidemic (Salman et al., 2021).

Infectious diseases, like other stresses in daily life, put our capacity to adapt to the challenge. Because the propagation of an infectious disease may induce concern, anxiety, and panic, makes us fear for our own and our family members' safety. Stressful experiences might also trigger memories of earlier traumatic occurrences, exacerbating our suffering. The psychological implications appear to be the most severe threat to the global population. Depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder are the most often reported psychological problems in the literature (Yuan et al., 2021). Some research found a rise in spousal violence and child abuse during the first weeks of lockdown (Fegert et al., 2020). In this regard, (Jiao et al., 2020) highlighted how COVID-19 lockout potentially influence children and indicated that family and community participation could prevent potential mental and physical health difficulties. These children's increased psychological symptoms may be due to a lack of assistance during such a stressful period. Policies should consider the effects of confinement on the mental health of families and urge supportive intervention in the current and future (Spinelli et al., 2020).

The epidemic has also had an influence on adults, causing them to be scared. This negative impact is also felt by the younger generation. Many researches have shown that the psychological load induced by COVID-19 has also been found in other pandemic circumstances, such as the response of Chinese adolescents to the SARS epidemic (2003) and avian influenza (H1N1) outbreaks (Jiang et al., 2020). Regardless of their detrimental consequences on the person, anxiety, panic, and fear of infection have always been shown to encourage people to follow social distancing rules (Holingue et al., 2020). On the other side, persons experiencing similar psychological changes have seen a significant rise in the incidence of accidental accidents and suicides over time.

At the same time, child telepsychiatry and psychotherapy advanced dramatically during this period, and the health-care system recognized and responded to these new types of care (Fegert et al., 2020). It should be highlighted, however, that the effects of COVID-19 were not only psychological, but also social, economic, health, political, educational, labor and employment, ethnic-racial, freedom, and citizenship rights. These consequences are inextricably intertwined, resulting in socioeconomic disparities and injustices (Ferreira et al., 2020).