My Journey through Mental Health and Wellbeing due to the Covid-19 Pandemic
It fills me with pride to know that we are one of the first, if not the first country in the world to arm ourselves...
"As we face up to the consequences of coronavirus we need to consider if we are going to be hit by a tidal wave of mental health problems. Will the economic impact of job losses lead to many people experiencing deteriorating mental health and wellbeing, or even suicidal intent? Or are we, as a Celtic population, more resilient to these stressors threatening our way of life? These questions are what motivated me to begin research on Covid-19 and the mental health consequences of a pandemic.
"Covid-19 has taught us that data-driven decisions are as important in mental health as they are in test and trace physical health systems - especially as NHS mental health services and third sector partners consider how to support the wellbeing of the Welsh population. This is what our Wales Covid-19 Wellbeing Survey seeks to address. I am part of the Swansea University team working with colleagues from Cardiff University and the NHS in Wales to evaluate the mental health and wellbeing of the population of Wales.
"It is a unique collaboration that has also brought us together with first responder organisations and third sector partners. I am excited that Wales is the first country, to my knowledge, that has undertaken such a detailed evaluation in the wake of Covid-19. Wales is a small nation, but it is populated by a strong, innovative and resourceful people with a firm cultural tradition of community spirit as well as being the birthplace of the founder of the NHS. Our survey has been designed to help the NHS and partner agencies plan for changes in mental health and wellbeing so we can put suitable support services where they are needed most.
"As we can only do that if we know where we were before the pandemic, we are using data collected by the Public Health Observatory in 2019 so we can look at pre- and post-Covid wellbeing in Wales. It is no good discovering 20 per cent of young women in Swansea were depressed during the pandemic unless you also know that 19 per cent of them were depressed before it happened. We need to evaluate the change in wellbeing due to coronavirus so we can put in place the necessary support structures to help people cope with that change.
"We have also allowed for a granular analysis so we can evaluate wellbeing needs by region, age, ethnicity, gender, by sector – such as employment type - and by deprivation index. This will allow us to apply our additional support with real precision. Looking ahead, we plan to follow our sample through different phases of the pandemic: from lockdown, into recovery, perhaps through a second wave of infection, recession and ultimately back into recovery.
We will be able to map the population’s wellbeing needs throughout these phases while the survey’s longitudinal design allows us to evaluate the intervention strategies that are employed.
"It fills me with pride to know that we are one of the first, if not the first, country in the world to arm ourselves with a large and detailed data set of more than 15,000 people living and working in Wales. This will allow us to wage war on the new adversary that is coronavirus and all that follows from it. As they say, information is power and science is our method for accessing this information.
"We need science to fight the physical consequences of disease and to reduce rates of infection. However, we equally need science to help us to understand and fight the mental health and wellbeing consequences of this challenge to the people of Wales. This is how we can ensure we remain the strong, resilient, and caring country that we all know and love."