The Covid-19 pandemic has a profound impact on all domains of day to day life, forcing individuals to make substancial change in the way of living. Such change is known to cause an important psychological distress, and in some persons evidencing silent disorders among apparently functional individuals. Good coping mechanisms and resilience can be the key to overpass this difficult period.

The aim of this study is to evaluate the coping mechanisms and resilience that Romanian psychiatric trainees used during Covid19 pandemic.

We developed an online questionnaire. We included questions about different socio-demographical variables and about coping mechanisms (using COPE scale), resilience (using Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale) and quality of life (using QoL Scale).

The preliminary data show that staying busy, seeking social support and having a positive minset are emotion-focused coping strategies present in individuals who overpass easier this period.

The Covid-19 pandemic is creating significant distress and impairment in functioning, but individuals who have good psychological mechanisms and who are more adaptable are less vulnerable during Covid-19 pandemic. Future research should build upon these findings to better understand coping mechanisms during crises and also social policies should be developed to acknowledge the variable needs in adults.

To investigate the perceived effects of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic lockdown measures on food availability, accessibility, dietary practices and strategies used by participants to cope with these measures.

We conducted a cross-sectional multi-country online survey between May and July 2020. We used a study-specific questionnaire mainly based on the adaptation of questions to assess food security and coping strategies from the World Food Programme’s ‘Emergency Food Security Assessment’ and ‘The Coping Strategy Index’.

The questionnaire was hosted online using Google Forms and shared using social media platforms.

A total of 1075 adult participants from eighty-two countries completed the questionnaire.

As a prelude to COVID-19 lockdowns, 62·7 % of the participants reported to have stockpiled food, mainly cereals (59·5 % of the respondents) and legumes (48·8 %). An increase in the prices of staples, such as cereals and legumes, was widely reported. Price increases have been identified as an obstacle to food acquisition by 32·7 % of participants. Participants reported having lesser variety (50·4 %), quality (30·2 %) and quantity (39·2 %) of foods, with disparities across regions. Vulnerable groups were reported to be facing some struggle to acquire adequate food, especially people with chronic diseases (20·2 %), the elderly (17·3 %) and children (14·5 %). To cope with the situation, participants mostly relied on less preferred foods (49 %), reduced portion sizes (30 %) and/or reduced the number of meals (25·7 %).

The COVID-19 pandemic negatively impacted food accessibility and availability, altered dietary practices and worsened the food insecurity situation, particularly in the most fragile regions.

Despite substantial research attention on obsessive beliefs, more research is needed to understand how these beliefs serve as aetiological or maintaining factors for obsessive-compulsive (OC) symptoms. Magical thinking may allow individuals to gain a sense of control when experiencing intrusive thoughts and corresponding obsessive beliefs, potentially accounting for why OC belief domains are often related to OC symptoms.

This study examines magical thinking as a mediating variable in the relationship between OC belief domains and symptoms.

Undergraduate students (n = 284) reported their obsessive beliefs, magical thinking, and OC symptoms.

As expected, there were significant indirect effects for the belief domain of inflated responsibility and over-estimation of threat on OC symptoms via magical thinking. There was also an indirect effect for the belief domain of importance and control of thoughts on OC symptoms via magical thinking. Unexpectedly, there was no indirect effect involving the belief domain of perfectionism and intolerance of uncertainty.

Magical thinking may be one mechanism through which certain OC beliefs lead to OC symptoms. It may be that magical thinking serves as a coping mechanism in response to elevated beliefs. Future studies should extend these findings across time and clinical samples.

Emergency services personnel are highly vulnerable to acute and cumulative critical incident stress (CIS) that can manifest as anger, guilt, depression, and impaired decision-making, and, in certain instances, job loss. Interventions designed to identify such distress and restore psychological functioning becomes imperative.

A statewide debriefing team was formed in 1988 through a collaborative effort between an academic department of emergency medicine and a social work department of a teaching hospital, and a metropolitan area fire department and ambulance service. Using an existing CIS debriefing model, 84 pre-screened, mental health professionals and emergency services personnel were provided with 16 hours of training and were grouped into regional teams.

Debriefing requests are received through a central number answered by a communicator in a 24-hour communications center located within the emergency department. Debriefings are conducted 48–72 hours after the event for specific types of incidents. Follow-up telephone calls are made by the debriefing team leader two to three weeks following a debriefing. The teams rely on donations to pay for travel and meals.

One hundred sixty-eight debriefings were conducted during the first four years. Rural agencies accounted for 116 (69%) requests. During this period, 1,514 individuals were debriefed: 744 (49%) firefighters, 460 (30%) EMTs, and 310 (21%) police officers, dispatchers, and other responders. Deaths of children, extraordinary events, and incidents involving victims known to the responders (35%, 14%, and 14% respectively) were the most common reasons for requesting debriefings. Feedback was received from 48 (28%) of the agencies that requested the debriefing. All of those who responded felt that the debriefing had a beneficial effect on its personnel. Specific individuals identified by agency representatives as having the greatest difficulty were observed to be returned to their pre-incident state.

CIS debriefings are judged as beneficial. A statewide response team is an effective way to provide these services at no cost to agencies.