Ansa Qurat-ul-ain
With the rapid spread of Covid-19 across the globe, an extensive level of fear, stress and concern is induced in general population and among specific groups in particular such as healthcare providers including mental health practitioners (psychologists/ psychiatrists). Considering the psychological health of mental health practitioners, the main psychological impact to date is elevated rates of work stress. Additionally, as new measures and effects are introduced especially quarantine and its effects on peopleâ??s routines, activities or livelihoods, levels of overall psychological maladjustments are also expected to rise. It can thus be speculated that appropriate use of cognitive stress management strategies is one of the requirements for mental health practitioners. In light of this, I shall focus this talk on how the work stress effects psychological wellbeing of mental health practitioners during Covid-19 and how cognitive flexibility mitigate the work related stressors. Research conducted has shown that cognitive flexibility enables an individual to work efficiently to disengage from a previous task, reconfigure an enhanced response set, and implement this new response set to the task at hand. Meanwhile, a point to understand how important cognitive flexibility is, would be that greater cognitive flexibility assists favorable outcomes throughout the pandemic such as higher resilience to work and quarantine related stressors, added bonus of an enhanced capability of creativity and better quality of life.
