Advances in telepsychiatry linked to COVID-19 pandemic status

This article presents the COVID-19 pandemic-induced progress, limitations and potential challenges in the field of telepsychiatry globally and in Poland. As a collective social experience, the pandemic has led to numerous negative effects, but at the same time has contributed to progress in some areas of life. Such an area is telemedicine and especially telepsychiatry. The stress of social constraints, the trauma of contracting COVID-19, and the increasing reports of the neurotropic effects of SARS-CoV-2 raise the risk of depressive, anxiety and other psychiatric disorders. The need for the availability of psychiatric care therefore increases during the pandemic. At the same time, existing forms of support carry a risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission. Therefore, remote contacts in psychiatry were recommended at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. These forms were already known and widely used in some highly computerised health care systems (especially with low population density and/or low availability of psychiatrists). However, for most systems, the pandemic state of COVID-19 and the sudden need to intensify remote contact with patients with psychiatric disorders pose a major logistical challenge. Telepsychiatry has numerous advantages and disadvantages. The pandemic has forced adaptation to new conditions and has also given rise to urgent action by professional bodies developing standards for the diagnosis and treatment of people with mental disorders in countries where this form was not recognised before the pandemic as equivalent to inpatient visits. During the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a sudden leap forward in the field of telepsychiatry, which calls for in-depth research to develop or modify standards of practice for the remote care of patients with mental disorders.