Browsing by Autor "Sandra van Dulmen"

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EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION
(2023) Christine Leyns; Sandra van Dulmen
Healthcare providers are formed to serve people and put people’s needs at the center. They are expected to inform their patients as experts in health problems and health risk factors. During the clinical encounter they must integrate their knowledge with the unique characteristics, feelings, needs, and life circumstances of the person seeking their help. While this is the ideal scenario, the pandemic erased this script completely. Everything had to be learned by everyone without an expert guide. What are the risk factors, are mouth masks necessary, should we close schools, borders, or do we apply watchful waiting? How can we define cases, diagnose people, and treat them if they become ill? What do we do with other chronic diseases, health problems, or preventive services? Which resources do we need, including human resources (student trainees, retired healthcare workers, volunteers)? What was the view of healthcare providers on their duty to work during this health emergency? The latter question is answered by Muñoz et al in their paper in this issue of the IJPCM for nursing students in Chile and Spain [1].
EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION COVID-19: THE PATIENT PERSPECTIVE
(2023) Sandra van Dulmen; Christine Leyns
In the beginning of 2020, the world turned into a dangerous place for all; the outbreak of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (shortly: COVID-19) seemingly affected all persons alike. Seemingly, the impact of the infection and the way it was treated differed markedly between people and countries. As a result, COVID-19 made many victims, disproportionately among older aged, the poor, ethnic minorities [1], and people with preexisting medical conditions like diabetes [2] or a recently diagnosed mental disorder [3]. These people appeared to have a higher risk of mortality. Beside the risk of infection, the COVID-19 outbreak impacted the whole population, resulting in heightened levels of anxiety, depression, and stress [4] both directly through the virus threat [5] as indirectly through loss of income [6] and social contact [7]. Although the pandemic had—and still has—a severe impact on the mental and physical health of those who were infected or at risk of being infected, people do seem to differ in the extent their lives were and are influenced by the infection. Recently, for instance, Bonenkamp et al investigated the mental health of 177 dialysis patients before and during the COVID-19 pandemic [8]. Their study showed that the mental health experienced by this group of patients was unaffected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The conclusion of the authors was that “dialysis patients may be better able to cope with the pandemic since they have high resilience and are less impacted by social distancing measures.” An alternative interpretation could, however, be that the mental health of people who undergo such an invasive treatment is already quite poor and might not be able to get any lower (floor effect). Nevertheless, as shown by the following quote of a young, chronically ill patient, individual persons differ in the way they cope with the pandemic:
TOWARDS AN EFFECTIVE PANDEMIC RESPONSE WHERE NO ONE IS LEFT BEHIND
(2023) Christine Leyns; Sandra van Dulmen
When a country is hit by a disaster or an epidemic, global solidarity is called upon and resources are mobilized, largely from high-income countries. The current pandemic scenario was different, even more in the beginning. All countries were hit, and they needed their own resources to reduce the impact on their health system and population. Many factors have been identified to hamper an optimal response to the pandemic like a delayed country-level and WHO response, a lack of coordination among governments, public opposition to routine public health and social measures, and the failure to properly address the profoundly unequal effects of the pandemic.