Ultra Brief Psychological Interventions for COVID-19 Pandemic: Introduction of a Locally-Adapted Brief Intervention for Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Service

Nicholas Pang Tze Ping; Wendy Diana Shoesmith; Sandi James; Noor Melissa Nor Hadi; Eugene Koh Boon Yau; Loo Jiann Lin

doi:10.21315/mjms2020.27.2.6

Ultra Brief Psychological Interventions for COVID-19 Pandemic: Introduction of a Locally-Adapted Brief Intervention for Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Service

Malays J Med Sci. 2020 Mar;27(2):51-56. doi: 10.21315/mjms2020.27.2.6. Epub 2020 Apr 30.

Authors

Nicholas Pang Tze Ping¹, Wendy Diana Shoesmith¹, Sandi James^{1

2}, Noor Melissa Nor Hadi³, Eugene Koh Boon Yau⁴, Loo Jiann Lin⁵

Affiliations

¹ Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Sabah, Malaysia.
² Department of Social Work and Social Policy, School of Science, Health and Engineering, La Trobe University, Australia.
³ Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health, Hospital Tuanku Fauziah, Perlis, Malaysia.
⁴ Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Selangor, Malaysia.
⁵ Queensway Clinic, Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust, Milton Keynes, United Kingdom.

Abstract

The ultra-brief psychological interventions (UBPI) was created in 2018 to empower healthcare providers with psychological skills that can be delivered within a short period. Techniques used within UBPI were adopted from a variety of well established psychotherapies and distilled into its core essentials. This enabled practitioners of UBPI to deliver specific psychological skills in the appropriate context to the client within a period of 15-20 min. UBPI was also manualised to standardised training of practitioners. During the novel coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, UBPI was modified to suit the unique psychological demands of the pandemic. This article presents how UBPI was adapted and used with healthcare providers dealing with COVID-19 and also with the public who required psychological first aid (PFA).

Keywords: COVID-19; PFA; mental health; psychiatry; psychotherapy.