Public Health emergencies and quarantine: virtual patient engagement as challenge and opportunity for Mental Health strategy

Abstract

Quarantine consists of the strict isolation imposed to prevent the spread of infectious disease: it is the separation among people and their social isolation adopted who have been exposed a contagious disease to ascertain if they become unwell, so reducing the risk of them infecting other. Priorities of National Actions for Mental Health should be based on following pillars: a) providing a virtual support to the patients who had COVID-19 (symptomatic and asymptomatic) diagnosis; b) monitoring the psychological needs addressing supportive strategies; c) boosting the mental health of quarantined patients for reinforcement of adherence to the medical prescriptions.

Keywords

• clinical psychology
• covid-19
• virtual patient engagement.