Psychiatry of Pandemics

This book focuses on how to formulate a mental health response to a massive infectious disease outbreak, including a pandemic outbreak. The book combines an emergency mental health response utilized by disaster psychiatry with clinical aspects and expertise on infectious diseases mental health developed by consultation-liaison psychiatry, making it an excellent resource for tackling each stage of an infectious outbreak crisis quickly and thoroughly.  The book opens by contextualizing the issues with a historical overview of pandemics ranging from plagues of  ancient times, through Black Death in the Middle Ages, Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, to outbreaks of modern times, including HIV, Ebola, and Zika.  The text acknowledges the new infectious disease challenges presented by climate changes and bioterrorism and considers how to implement systems to prepare for these issues from an infection and social perspective. The manuscript then delves into the mental healthaspects of these crises, including community and cultural responses, emotional epidemiology, and mental health concerns in the aftermath of a disaster. Finally, the text considers medical responses to situation-specific trauma, including quarantine and isolation-associated trauma, the mental health aspects of immunization and vaccination (including vaccine hesitancy), survivor mental health, and support for healthcare personnel, thereby providing guidance for some of the most alarming situations facing the medical community organizing a mental health response to an infectious outbreak.

Written by experts in the field, Psychiatry of Pandemics is an excellent resource for infectious disease specialists, psychiatrists, psychologists, immunologists, hospitalists, public health officials, nurses, disaster mental health workers, and all medical professionals who may work with patients in an infectious disease outbreak.