INTRODUCTION
Covid-19, which has affected the whole world, causes psychological as well as physiological disorders. The anxiety, anxiety and fear caused by Covid-19 further fuel the disorders of individuals with existing obsessive compulsive disorder. In fact, unfortunately, the panic and uncertainty caused by the pandemic have paved the way for the triggering of this disorder. In the meantime, we attempted to write this article, thinking that the main thing is information pollution and uncertainty. We hope that this article will be useful in understanding which disorder is caused by frequently repeated behaviors that disturb individuals that we can frequently observe in our environment and negatively affect their daily lives. In our article, while touching on what Covid-19 is and how it affects individuals, we focused on its relationship with contamination obsession, the most common type of OCD.
What is OCD?
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is a psychological disease that usually begins in childhood, causing frequent repetition of irrational thoughts and behaviors that negatively affect the person's daily life. Obsession, thoughts that occupy the mind a lot, and the distress of not being able to stop them, cause the person to engage in repetitive behaviors, namely compulsions, in order to suppress the distress and restlessness. OCD is a disease that cannot be explained only by physical substance use and physiological disorders. Additionally, this disease may involve more than one obsession. (e.g., a person with anorexia nervosa who also has a substance use disorder)
OCD is diagnosed if the person has both obsessions and compulsions together or if the obsessions or compulsions are present alone and these symptoms take up the person's excessive time and / or should be placed if it significantly hinders its functionality. (Bayar and Yavuz, 2008) The individual diagnosed with OCD becomes so preoccupied with these thoughts and behaviors that he loses most of his time and his functionality is damaged.
"The patient's mind is full of thoughts that do not really concern him, and he feels impulses that are foreign to him; couldn't resist from time to time He is forced to take the necessary actions. These thoughts - obsessions - have no meaning for the patient and often seem absurd to him/her. Although these thoughts never actually turn into action, they cause the patient to constantly avoid situations that remind them of these thoughts. The patient's involuntary behaviors do not go beyond exaggerated and ceremonial forms of activities such as washing, which are normal activities of daily life; However, these harmless behaviors, called obsessive acts or compulsions, are performed against the person's will (Geçtan, 1989).
Different studies show that OCD affects 3.1% of the general population and causes significant disability and shows that it is associated with low quality of life (Fontenelle, Mendlowicz, & Versiani, 2006; Ruscio, Stein, Chiu, & Kessler, 2010). The most common types of OCD are contamination, symmetry, sexual and religious issues. In addition, there may be some diseases accompanying OCD. The anxiety level of the individual who has unwanted thoughts in certain areas of his life increases and he is in a constant struggle with stress, which can lead to major depression and burnout
When we consider the coronavirus that has affected the whole world, exposure, which is a behavioral therapy technique, does not seem to be valid. Instead of exposure technique, it seems more important for mental and physical health to work on solving people's internal anxiety and relieving them. HE Serotonin-based drugs are preferred as the first choice in the drug treatment of BP.
WHAT IS COVID-19?
31 December In 2019, 27 cases of pneumonia of unknown etiology were detected in Wuhan City, Hubei province, China (Lu, Stratton, Tang, 2020).
The COVID-19 epidemic, which is a widespread pandemic worldwide, continues to seriously threaten life. In fact, while the information about this disease, which started in Wuhan, China's Hubei province, at an unexpected time in December 2019, changes every day, the existing panic and anxiety have turned into a kind of fear due to the rapid transmission of the disease and the constantly increasing number of patients and deaths. We can observe that contamination obsession, which is already the most common type of OCD, increases even more with the occurrence of COVID-19. (Üstün and Özçiftçi, 2020)
In the report prepared by WHO, it was determined that the virus remained on various surfaces for between 2 hours and 5 days. However, T.R. The Ministry of Health predicts that the infection rate will decrease if the declaration published under the name "14 rules against the risk of coronavirus" is followed. In addition, the results of vaccine studies and the increasing vaccination rates are promising in terms of preventing the pandemic.
COVID-19 & OCD
In addition to causing organic pathologies that affect the whole world, it is seen that Covid-19 can also disrupt global mental health by causing a global panic environment. It brings with it many psychological problems such as health anxiety, mass hysteria, panic and loneliness. (Nebioğlu Yıldız and Türkili, 2020).
Prof from Hacettepe University. Dr. Müjgan İnözü Mermerkaya said that in their project titled "Mental Health Studies on the COVID-19 Pandemic", they developed the "Covid-19 Anxiety Stress Scale" to evaluate the relationships between the epidemic and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), hopelessness for the future and exaggerated threat perception. (Vervigeren, 2021)
People can develop a mentally strong structure by learning the seriousness and general outlines of the pandemic process from authorized scientists. However, misinformation and misinformation Downloads can harm people's behavior. Precautions should be taken against this, especially in this process, and authorized persons may need to reach out to the public more.
“In the current pandemic, engaging in religious actions gives us control over the situation, helps us make the situation understandable, and most importantly, gives us hope. In addition, in people's negative experiences that are beyond their control, belief systems provide a sense of trust, paving the way for the person to relax. With this sense of trust, the person can establish a cause-effect relationship by providing explanations for negative developments that are beyond his control. Being able to look at a person from the perspective of cause-effect relationship can give him hope or reduce his anxiety.
On the other hand, people may tend to take refuge in absolute power in situations that are outside the flow of their lives and in events that occur outside their will. Thus, they can protect themselves against the stress brought by the pandemic. In addition, many people think that the pandemic is a response to the evil done and hold people responsible for this situation. In this way, it is possible to place the belief system on a more solid ground, rather than weakening it.
Perhaps no group with mental illness is more directly affected by the worsening epidemic of COVID-19 than people living with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). Paradoxically, they are "experts by experience" in attempting to prevent dangers by enacting compulsive behavior. Essentially, the increase in virus-related anxiety fuels existing obsessive fears of contamination in some people with OCD, further triggering harmful compulsive actions. For these people, coronavirus may become the only thing they think about. (Adam, 2020)
Adults and youth who are predisposed to developing obsessive-compulsive disorder will likely be profoundly affected by the current COVID-19 pandemic. Existing difficulties will almost certainly be exacerbated in many of these individuals who already have clinically significant symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Those most at risk are people who are concerned about self-infection, people who fear unknowingly spreading infection and harming others, people who tend to seek reassurance by excessive news about COVID-19, and people who are afraid of threatening They are people who exaggerate things. (Hewson, Shepherd, Hard and Shaw, 2020)
The Coronavirus (Coronavirus / Covid-19) pandemic epidemic is both an epidemic under our control and not. If we take individual precautions and warn our environment about this, we can control this epidemic. Naturally, a situation that is under control cannot make us more anxious or affect us psychologically.” he said.
Since the first day of the pandemic, it has been observed that emotional/reactive problems such as fear, panic, anxiety and insecurity have increased in people due to situations such as death, the excess number of patients in intensive care and intubated patients, and comments made in the media (Lai et al., 2020)
Developments outside the normal flow of life can cause panic and fear in society because more chilling language is used than in the media. The impact of information pollution on society is an important factor in increasing anxiety. A person may not get this anxiety by thinking only about himself. Apart from the person himself, his family and people around him may cause his anxiety to increase. In this process, it can be observed that individuals with chronic diseases, especially those around them, have higher anxiety levels than others. In addition, the uncertainty and minimization of social life in the early days of the pandemic can be considered as a factor that increases the level of anxiety, as it may have increased the time to think about Covid.
In addition to physical health, the traumatic experiences it brings with it can affect psychological health. COVID-19, which is also effective, can directly or indirectly cause anxiety in individuals. The reason for the fear and stress experienced due to the Covid-19 epidemic can be explained as the normal reactions of the disease to an extraordinary situation encountered for the first time (Sümer, 2020).
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