Anxiety processes related to the coronavirus crisis.

This is how the pandemic has triggered anxiety problems in many people.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed us, altered our way of life, presenting a situation of stress and anxiety that has affected everyone to a greater or lesser extent.

Society is not prepared to live through a pandemic that entails a drastic change in daily life: restrictions on going out in the street, loss of contact with other people, isolation, alterations or even loss of a job or death of a loved one.

All these facts have had repercussions on the mental health of society, causing more psychological problems such as an excessive increase in anxiety, which increased at the beginning of the pandemic and, in many cases, lasted for months.

Below we will see what they are the most common anxiety disorders that can arise in a crisis such as the coronavirus crisis.and we will point out some measures to deal with them.

What do we understand by anxiety?

Throughout the history of the Psychology it has been tried to define the concept anxiety differentiating it of other terms as "anguish" or "fear".. Anxiety would be explained as an emotional state generated by a diffuse combination of disturbing emotions that does not have an external source that generates it and is not produced by a current threat but by the possibility of a future danger that is often unpredictable.

The author Peter Lang proposed a triple response system that appeared in anxiety states: the subjective-cognitive system related to internal experience, the physiological-somatic system, linked to the activation of the autonomic nervous system, and the motor-behavioral response system encompasses all observable behavioral responses.

Within the anxiety category there are different types, although all of them have in common that they they present a tendency to irrational behavior, an excessive and persistent intensity, generate discomfort and are disturbing for the person.. In reference to the prevalence of this type of disorder, a high percentage of them has always been observed in society, being considered on many occasions the most common psychological disorder and occurring mainly in the female population.

Types of anxiety

As we have pointed out above, the anxiety group is made up of different disorders that, despite showing similar characteristics, also present differences and defining aspects of each one.

Currently, the fifth edition of the Diagnostic Manual of the American Psychological Association (DSM 5) classifies within the category of anxiety disorders: panic disorder characterized by fear of having a panic or anxiety attack (sudden onset of fear or discomfort accompanied by autonomic activation symptoms), agoraphobia (fear of suffering symptoms of panic attack in a situation where escape or receiving help is difficult), specific phobia (fear of a specific stimulus or situation) and social anxiety disorder occurrence of anxiety before a social situation or performance in public.

The manual also describes Generalized Anxiety Disorder.In this case, the fear or anxiety is not specific to a stimulus or situation but is characterized by excessive preoccupation with different aspects of daily life. Finally, it also describes more typical types of anxiety in childhood, such as separation anxiety disorder and selective mutism.

To be considered as such, any disorder must affect the functionality of the person, i.e. alter some aspect of his or her life or cause discomfort. It has been observed that the most prevalent anxiety disorder in society is specific phobia and in the clinical setting, panic disorder with agoraphobia is one of the most disabling.

Similarly, the DSM 5 has created another diagnostic category for disorders related to trauma and adaptive disorders; here we find post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which is one of the most disabling disorders. appears as a reaction to a traumatic eventThe symptoms of Generalized Anxiety Disorder, affecting the functionality and producing discomfort or the adaptive disorder with a smaller discomfort than in the TEPT but still greater than the expected one, and dysfunctional.

Anxiety and stress in the pandemic

The consequences of the COVID-19 crisis have been devastating not only at the physical health level, but also in the mental health and social realm.. The situations we have experienced have been extreme, unable to leave home, being isolated, and with cases of people with previous psychopathologies living alone and not being able to relate to others.

In addition, the economic crisis has had an impact on employment and purchasing power, experiences capable of completely disrupting people's habits and plans for the future. In this sense, fear and the constant tension generated by job insecurity play an important role.

All these sudden changes have affected the population to a greater or lesser extent, since their lives have been modified regardless of economic situation, age... The virus can affect everyone, and for this reason the entire population is at risk.

Some of the factors the factors that have been most influenced by the anxiety triggered by the pandemic are are:

• The need to stay isolated at home and the unwanted loneliness that this generates, making relationships with other people impossible (we must not forget that humans are social beings, and this means that we need contact with others).
• The economy: there have been many who have seen their jobs endangered by reducing their working hours or even being fired.
• Fear of loss of physical health.
• Fear of being guilty of infecting a loved one.
• Grief due to illness or death of loved ones.
• The constant dissemination of sensationalist and catastrophic news about the pandemic.

In general, the mental health situation in world society has worsened, affecting to a greater extent people living in the most unfavorable socioeconomic situations, those who already had previous mental health problems, and those who have suffered directly from the virus. It has been found that 1 in 5 of those affected have been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, depression or insomnia for the first time, and are twice as likely to suffer from a mental health problem. and are twice as likely as the general population to suffer from these disorders.

The situation has been so extreme and unexpected that it has even increased the prevalence of suicidal thoughts by 8% to 10%, especially in young adults.

In Spain, in the specific case of anxiety problems, of the people who were interviewed, 15.8% reported having suffered an anxiety attack, 15.8% reported having suffered an anxiety attack.affecting the daily life of 66.7% of these subjects and affecting the female population to a greater extent.

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I am a General Health Psychologist federated by the FEAP and I offer more than 20 years of experience in the sector; the sessions can be carried out in person or online.