The COVID-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented stress on healthcare professionals worldwide. Since resilience and mentalizing capacity play very important preventive roles when it comes to mental health, the main goal of this study was to determine whether the capacity for mentalizing and resilience could explain the levels of depression, anxiety, and stress among healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study was conducted in Serbia on a sample of 406 healthcare workers (141 doctors and 265 nurses) aged 19 to 65 (M = 40.11, SD = 9.41). The participants’ mental health status was evaluated using the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale—DASS-42. The Reflective Functioning Questionnaire was used to evaluate the capacity for mentalizing. Resilience was assessed using the Brief Resilience Scale. The results of the correlation analysis showed that there were negative correlations between resilience and all three dimensions of mental health status: depression, anxiety, and stress. Hypermentalizing was negatively correlated with depression, anxiety, and stress, while hypomentalizing was positively correlated. Hierarchical linear regression analysis showed that both resilience and hypermentalizing were significant negative predictors of depression, anxiety, and stress, and that hypomentalizing was a significant positive predictor of depression, anxiety, and stress. Furthermore, socioeconomic status was a significant negative predictor of depression, anxiety, and stress. Marital status, number of children, and work environment were not statistically significant predictors of any of the three dimensions of mental health status among the healthcare workers in this study. There is an urgent need to establish and implement strategies to foster resilience and enhance the capacity for mentalizing among healthcare workers in order to minimize the devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health.

Beginning with its emergence in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), a pandemic that causes COVID-19, has spread and left profound consequences on the lives and health of people around the world. Although most patients who have COVID-19 recover after two to six weeks, research shows that 10–30% of people who have had COVID-19, even with a mild clinical picture, remain with persistent symptoms that have a devastating effect on their quality of life. These symptoms, which most often include fatigue, shortness of breath, chest pain, headache, and cognitive dysfunction, but also others that generally have an impact on everyday functioning, are recognized as a clinical condition called post-COVID syndrome (long COVID). In addition to physical disabilities in people recovering from COVID-19, mental health problems have also been observed, including problems with concentration (“brain fog”), anxiety, depression, sleep disorders, and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In this chapter, we provide a comprehensive review of the current scientific findings identifying post-COVID conditions and their relationship with mental health status.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused enormous psychological impact worldwide, and represents an unprecedented threat to mental health. There are significant individual differences in adaptation to a stressful situation such as a pandemic, which depends on personality characteristics and psychological resources such as resilience and capacity for mentalizing. Research shows that a good capacity for mentalizing and resilience are a protective factors for mental health, which can be acquired through an appropriate education and training programs. The objective of this chapter is to summarize the extant literature reporting on mental health, ie. the prevalence of symptoms of depression, anxiety, and others forms of psychological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic. An additional objective is to identify the role of preventive factors: resilience and capacity for mentalizing, which are associated with mental health. Findings from the extensive scientific literature prove that the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the prevalence of mental health problems by a massive 25% worldwide and that resilience and good mental capacity play a significant role in reducing mental health disorders.

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The aim of this study was to examine and determine hygiene habits in the adolescent population depending on whether the Covid 19 pandemic affected the improvement of hygiene habits in the same population. The research is designed as a cross-sectional study. A questionnaire created using the Google Docs platform was used as an instrument. The sample consisted of 89 respondents of both sexes, aged 18 to 23 years. The analysis shows that there is a difference in maintaining hygienic habits before and after the introduction of the state of emergency. In 20.22% of cases, hygienic habits were better during the state of emergency, and after the mitigation of measures, compared to the period before the introduction of the state of emergency, and in 5.62% of respondents hygienic habits were worse, while in 74.16% of respondents there were no change in hygienic habits. The analysis of the use of disinfectants and masks shows that 60.68% of respondents used disinfectants and masks more often after mitigation of emergency measures compared to the period before the introduction of the state of emergency, 5.62% of respondents used less, while in 33.70 % of respondents there were no changes in the use of disinfectants and masks. The results of this study show a positive relationship between hygiene habits before and during the Covid 19 pandemic, and after mitigation, as well as between the use of disinfectants and masks before and during the Covid 19 pandemic, and after mitigation, which justifies further research in this area.