2021-07-15
How to mitigate the consequences of the pandemic on mental health – the plan is in place, but there is also room to improve it
The long-standing COVID-19 pandemic has increased the risk factors related to mental health and has led to a deterioration of the public mental health. Data show that during the pandemic, about 10 % more people turn to medical institutions for depression, anxiety and reaction to severe stress disorders. The general level of stress in society has increased by about 2 times, and feelings of anxiety, anger, sadness by about 1.5 times, compared to the period before the pandemic.
In order to assess the planning and implementation of actions taken to mitigate the long-term negative consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and the availability of mental health services, the National Audit Office carried out an assessment of measures to mitigate the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health. The action plan to reduce the long-term negative consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on public mental health, approved by the Ministry of Health and updated in May 2021, was assessed (EUR 3.0 million is foreseen for its implementation in 2020, EUR 11.3 million in 2021, EUR 7.2 million in 2022).
Access to mental health services is an essential factor in improving mental health, which is not yet sufficient. During the pandemic, the number of visits to primary mental health care professionals increased by about 17 % compared to 2019. The waiting queues for services to an adult psychiatrist and a medical psychologist remained the same as in the pre-pandemic period, while the number of queues at children’s and adolescent psychiatrics increased by 23 %. Both adults and children often have to wait longer than 7 calendar days for mental health services, although this is the maximum time limit laid down in the Law on Healthcare Institutions.
It is worrying that too little attention is paid to informing the population about possible psychological support. The survey showed that 65.7 % of respondents had no knowledge of psychological support during the pandemic period; 55 % of the population interviewed are unaware that free psychological support is available at the Mental Health Centre and 69 % are not aware that such services are provided by municipal public health offices. The lack of timely attention to awareness-raising on the possibilities of psychological support discourages citizens from contacting professionals when needed, which can lead to the emergence of more severe mental illnesses and increase the burden on the health sector.
The National Audit Office calls for attention to be paid to the fact that during the pandemic, quarantine and distance learning have made children and adolescents particularly vulnerable. This is also evidenced by an doubled increase in suicide topic (between 9 % and 18 %) when calling the “Children’s Line”. The plan targets only one measure for young people, which deals with young people’s education, while the scope of targeted support measures for children is particularly low.
“Lithuania is one of the few EU countries where a plan to mitigate the consequences of COVID-19 on mental health has been approved, but there is still a lack of more precise planning of the funds allocated to these activities – not all measures have the necessary funds for their implementation. Amendments also should be made to performance indicators in the plan to focus them on measuring the result rather than the process of implementation. For this reason, it will not be possible to determine in the future whether the measures taken have had an impact on reducing the mental health consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and to ensure that the most impacting measures are included in the plan," said Akvilė Kernagė, Principal Auditor-Audit Team Leader.
The Ministry of Health should pay more attention to the availability of mental health services, to inform the population about the possibilities of psychological assistance and to strengthen their mental health literacy. The implementation of the recommendations of the National Audit Office’s previous audit reports on improving the accessibility of services, the management of waiting queues and the lack of health care professionals would improve the mental health situation.