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. 2021 May 12:14:1917-1932.
doi: 10.2147/RMHP.S284313. eCollection 2021.

The Role of Social Media in the Advent of COVID-19 Pandemic: Crisis Management, Mental Health Challenges and Implications

Jaffar Abbas  1   2 , Dake Wang  2 , Zhaohui Su  3 , Arash Ziapour  4
Affiliations

The Role of Social Media in the Advent of COVID-19 Pandemic: Crisis Management, Mental Health Challenges and Implications

Jaffar Abbas et al. Risk Manag Healthc Policy. .

Abstract

Background: This study focuses on how educating people through social media platforms can help reduce the mental health consequences of the COVID-19 to manage the global health crisis. The pandemic has posed a global mental health crisis, and correct information is indispensable to dispel uncertainty, fear, and mental stress to unify global communities in collective combat against COVID-19 disease worldwide. Mounting studies specified that manifestly endless coronavirus-related newsfeeds and death numbers considerably increased the risk of global mental health issues. Social media provided positive and negative data, and the COVID-19 has resulted in a worldwide infodemic. It has eroded public trust and impeded virus restraint, which outlived the coronavirus pandemic itself.

Methods: The study incorporated the narrative review analysis based on the existing literature related to mental health problems using the non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) approach to minimize the COVID-19 adverse consequences on global mental health. The study performed a search of the electronic databases available at PsycINFO, PubMed, and LISTA. This research incorporates the statistical data related to the COVID-19 provided by the WHO, John Hopkins University, and Pakistani Ministry of Health.

Results: Pakistan reported the second-highest COVID-19 cases within South Asia, the fifth-highest number of cases in Asia after Iran, India, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the 14th highest recorded cases, as of October 14, 2020. Pakistan effectively managed the COVID-19 pandemic in the second wave. It stands at the eighth-highest number of confirmed cases in Asia, the 3rd-highest in South Asia, and the 28th-highest number of established patients globally, as of February20, 2021.

Conclusion: The COVID-19 has resulted in over 108.16 million confirmed cases, deaths over 2.374 million, and a recovery of 80.16 million people worldwide, as of February 12, 2021. This study focused on exploring the COVID-19 pandemic's adverse effects on global public health and the indispensable role of social media to provide the correct information in the COVID-19 health crisis. The findings' generalizability offers helpful insight for crisis management and contributes to the scientific literature. The results might provide a stepping-stone for conduct future empirical studies by including other factors to conclude exciting developments.

Keywords: COVID-19; health crisis; mental health; social media; social support; tele-education.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest for this work.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Timeline of main events of the COVID-19 pandemic in Wuhan city, China.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Cumulative confirmed cases of the COVID-19 pandemic, as of February 23, 2021.
Figure 3
Figure 3
The case fatality rate (CFR) of the COVID-19, as of February 23, 2021, worldwide.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Daily new COVID-19 cases per million population, as of February 23, 2021, worldwide.
Figure 5
Figure 5
COVID-19 active cases, recovery vs death rate in Pakistan, as of September 12, 2020.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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