AN ASSESSMENT OF COUNSELLING NEEDS OF PATIENTS WHO TEST POSITIVE FOR COVID-19 AT LEVY MWANAWASA UNIVERSITY TEACHING HOSPITAL

Abstract

Background: Psychological counselling is a challenging task global society faces. This can be seen in a raise in mental related disorders. Despite counselling being an important intervention to help handle psychological concerns in most day-to-day activities, in some instances, it has not been holistically taken as a serious tool. A lot of mental-related problems like stress, and anxieties arose with Coronavirus 19 as the 6th pandemic. During the first and second waves of COVID-19, health workers’ uncertainties when disclosing positive results, and patients’ unpreparedness to receive bad news led to unprecedented reactions. These reactions were worsened by the change of counselling modalities as patients could receive results on phone, while others conducted counselling sessions in personal protective clothes due to fear of acquiring or transmitting the disease. Hence, uncertainties on the goal of achieving psychological autonomy for our COVID-19 patients. Methods: Qualitative case study was used and data was collected through in-depth, semi-structured interviews from 11 COVID-19 survivors systematically sampled while 5 health workers were purposively chosen as key informants. This data on COVID-19 results disclosure, psychological experiences, preferred way of receiving bad news and coping mechanisms were analyzed using thematic analysis. The aim of the study was to access the counselling needs of patients who tested positive for COVID-19 at Levy Mwanawasa University Teaching Hospital from 2020 to 2021. Objective: Conceptually this paper evaluates the factors affecting counselling in COVID-19 patients at Levy Mwanawasa Medical University Hospital COVID-19 centre. Results: In this study environment, counselling practices on patients testing for COVID-19 were not encouraging. Overall, the participants had a poor perception of the way doctors were breaking bad news to the Clients and how this exponentially affected their mental health. There is a need seen for health workers to possess basic psychological counselling skills to handle emergency crisis as well as improve on referral system in mental care. These qualms are being mitigated through refresher basic training in counselling courses and observing 5 golden rules of COVID-19 Conclusion: The study showed the importance of a Doctor’s attention to standards of psychological practice when attending to Clients or disclosing their sensitive results. Similar