key: cord-351892-rmf0azon
authors: Maldonado-Castellanos, Isaac
title: Ethical issues when planning mental health services after COVID-19 outbreak
date: 2020-07-13
journal: Asian J Psychiatr
DOI: 10.1016/j.ajp.2020.102285
sha: 
doc_id: 351892
cord_uid: rmf0azon

nan

Recently, a paper written by Ransing et al. (2020) adressed a conceptual framework aiming to guide the development, implementation and evaluation of mental health interventions during the COVID-19 outbreak. The proposed model includes the following main topics coordination and preparation, monitoring and assessment, reduction of the mental distress due to misinformation and "myths", sustainability of mental health services and communication. In addition to this, ethical considerations should be incorporated when planning novel mental health programs.

It is widely known that COVID-19 pandemic has changed people's lives. As a consequence, a new social dynamic has been stablished where people need to engage in healthy preventive behaviors by adopting social distance measures. In this respect, uncertainty on the duration of confinement actions, the unavailability of vaccines or treatments for COVID-19 and the increase of the number of people infected might increase worry, fear, confusion, or anxiety making adaptation process difficult to these new circumstances during a public global emergency.

In this context, the increase of mental health problems among socially distanced and selfisolated people is one of the major concerns encompassed by mental health professionals. Ransing et al. (2020) have described that mental health problems are common during a J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f pandemic, but they need to be well identified by proper epidemiological studies. As a consequence, people have opted the use of digital technologies like telemedicine or hotlines to cope with mental health issues during the confinement actions taken by governments to stop the spread of the virus.

These alternative approaches represent a non-traditional ways of mental health services delivery that might facilitate access to health services but at the same time, they rise new ethical challenges. For instance, protection of personal data is a major concern of mental health users that might lead people to feel unsteady when talking about intimate issues Ethical principles like justice, integrity, beneficence, nonmaleficence and autonomy must be incorporated in a new ethical framework to regulate the use of digital technologies related to health services. Culture practices are been transformed after the COVID-19 and new ethical controversies on mental health digital services are yet to be identified (Bauer et al., 2017) .

To accomplish this challenge, professionals need to discuss, and review topics related to informed consent, data protection, patient privacy, identity confirmation or digital medical J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f prescription in order to incorporate these subjects when developing contemporary mental health programs. As a psychologist, I think there is an opportunity to adapt to a new social digital complexity by developing new codes of conduct aimed at psychologist, psychiatrist and other mental health professionals.

Things are changing. APA's Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct and other ethical codes for psychologists and psychiatrists need to habituate to this current humanity's challenge. We are facing a paradigm shift in psychological and psychiatric services provided through digital platforms that need a comprehensive and contemporary ethical analysis.

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Author declare no conflicts of interest in connection with this paper

The Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACyT) through doctoral scolarship.

Ethical principles of psychologists and code of conduct

Ethical perspective on recommending digital technology for patients with mental illness

Mental health interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic: A conceptual framework by early career psychiatrists

Towards the design of ethical standards related to digital mental health and all its applications