#BTColumn – Mental health in a pandemic

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by this author are their own and do not represent the official position of the Barbados Today.

by Georg Alleyne

As Barbados and the rest of the world feel their way through the COVID-19 pandemic and its devastating effects on lives, jobs and ways of social existence, experts say that consideration must be given to the state of mind of employees adjusting to new environments.

This required attention gives rise to new conventions and practices in the workplace ranging from frequent psychological assessments, counselling, and in some instances, even clinical therapy to deal with mental illnesses and behavioural problems.

“We have to pay a lot of attention going forward to how we promote mental health,” Clinical Psychologist Dr Jacqueline Benn has said.

Currently a University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Clinical Psychological Counsellor in the office of student services, she advised that administrators must now consider structures to be put into place to ensure that employees or managers have access to mental health care.

Measures must be taken to ensure, “it is not a sidebar; that it is an integral part of your working environment. So when you have your [job] appraisal done maybe that can also be a part [of the assessment] in terms of how are you functioning, how are you feeling in terms of your environment – not to be used against you but to help the organisation to be the best organisation that it can be.”

The psychologist of more than 16 years’ experience was not just theorising, as she revealed that a quarter of the University of the West Indies staff across all campuses is suffering some sort of COVID-19 related mental stress and that this is reflective of what obtains in the wider Caribbean society.

The UWI COVID-19 Taskforce did a rapid response impact survey across all five campuses between April and May 2020, she said, adding that the assessment looked at 847 staff and 276 student-staff. It considered a variety of factors: the campus setting, faculty, age, gender, sexual orientation, depression, and anxiety.

Dr Benn said survey results showed, “24 per cent of staff has reported moderately severe to severe depressive symptoms, and 22 per cent reported severe anxiety symptoms on clinical screening measures”.

“That suggests the severity of those symptoms warrants some type of clinical intervention.” She said this finding holds implications for workplaces across the Caribbean, “that will be repeated across many organisations. I don’t think that would be just for [persons at] UWI campuses”.

Dr Benn’s revelation came during a recent UWI Centre for Professional Development and Lifelong Learning panel discussion.

As it stands now, more Barbadian workers are indicating higher anxiety levels wherever workplaces facilitate such counselling, reported another panellist, Barbados Employers Confederation’s (BEC) Business Administrator, Sheena Mayers-Granville.

She said feedback BEC received from some human resources managers indicated “they have seen an increase in the use of their employee assistance programme. Persons have been tapping in where it’s available because persons are expressing that they are under severe stress”.

Also on that panel was UWI Lecturer in Public Health and Epidemiology Dr Heather Harewood, who implored Barbadian employers to, “let us treat mental health care as though it is an integral aspect of our lives”.

Issues surrounding mental health are usually stigmatised socially and Dr Harewood said that the instance of this pandemic which will take the way of living to a new normal presents the perfect opportunity for Bajans to abandon that negative outlook to this medical matter.

“In order to reduce the stigma of mental health we have to treat mental health as we do any other health area… through education,” she said, adding, “I think the time has come for us to encourage organisations to implement employee assistance programmes within their organisations so that their employees can access that health care.”

“They can facilitate mental health first aid training as well as psychological first aid training so that if something like this should happen again, or some other disaster, that you have persons on the ground who can help to facilitate the beginning of mental health care before you may have to hand it over to more professional individuals.”