Coping with Disrupted Social Support During COVID

In the late 1970’s social psychology and epidemiology were bridged with a set of interdisciplinary studies that produce convincing scientific evidence that social support can promote good mental and physical health and ameliorate the healing process. Families, friends, counselors, coaches, even work acquaintances appear to be important for our well-being. That work led to ubiquitous employment of social support interventions post-surgery or post-trauma within health care delivery systems.

Those of us spending most of our lives at home know that COVID has disrupted social support systems. Of course, we can interact with others on the telephone and social media, but most of us have missed face-to-face interaction with our friends and extended family members. Some faculty and staff live with others and enjoy daily contact with those householders. But other faculty and staff live by themselves and have fewer in-person interactions.

Eighteen to 23-year-olds are transitioning from dependence on parents to more independent living with increased peer influence. COVID has impaired these developments for many students. There are several articles that have discussed the impact of COVID on undergraduate students who remained in their homes, taking virtual classes, with no in-person contact with any of their peers. Anxiety and depression prevalence seems to have sharply risen over the months since March, 2020, when most universities switched to remote learning.

So, COVID has damaged the social support networks of faculty, staff, and students – the whole Georgetown community. Weakened social support is causally linked with health issues.

Since COVID is the cause of this disruption, much of our efforts as a university attempt to reduce its effects. Minimizing the positivity rate through public health protections has been the primary tool. But these protocols themselves can merely produce a sense of isolation and absence of social support that produces the harm discussed above. Until widespread vaccination in our community offers relief from social isolation, much of the mental health suffering is likely to continue.

Hence, we’ve taken a few actions to address the harmful effects of COVID on mental health. For faculty and staff, we have added a benefit to our partnership with One Medical, the partner who has provided support for COVID testing on campus. The benefit fits the times – telehealth visits. All Georgetown faculty and staff can have access to fast, convenient, confidential and free one-on-one mental health support. These conferences with a trained professional can address a myriad of troubles faced by our colleagues — sleepless nights, worry, stress, trouble winding down or focusing, depression or feeling sad, loneliness, anxiety, grief and survivorship, agitation, irritability, or frustrated mood, and relationship problems. Some of these attributes have been exacerbated by the lives we must live during COVID. More information about these services can be found at this website, where a faculty or staff member can sign up using their Georgetown email ID.

For students, the University has launched HoyaWell, a service for all degree-seeking undergraduate and graduate students that provides access to 24/7/365 telemental health services from anywhere in the United States at no cost to the student. The service addresses a current constraint in licensing of counseling services that prohibited our CAPS counselors from serving some states where our students located post-COVID. HoyaWell has three prongs, coordinated with the Counseling and Psychiatric Services. The most immediate and available is “TalkNow,” an on-demand 24/7 access to mental health support. This offers emotional support, both for critical events and more routine, more chronic issues. The second is scheduled counseling options to meet with a licensed counselor. The student can choose the counselor based on schedule and preference, addressing anything from depression and anxiety to grief, addiction and more. The third is based on referrals from CAPS, for scheduled options to meet with a licensed psychiatrist. More information about these services can be found at this website.

None of these services offered to our community can make COVID disappear. They can, however, help each of us cope with the disruption of COVID we’re experiencing. We should all take advantage of them.