Cross-views of positive or negative COVID psychiatric patients on their experience of the health crisis in a COVID unit during the first wave

Since the beginning of the health crisis, health care personnel have been confronted with an influx of patients with COVID-19. Given the complexity of the situation, the reorganization of care was done on an emergency basis to ensure careful management to limit the spread of the disease among health care personnel and patients. As patients suffering from psychiatric disorders were not spared, the Ville-Evrard Public Health Establishment set up a strategy to deal with this crisis by setting up a COVID+ unit specialized in the care of patients suffering from mental disorders and infected by the Coronavirus. Patients diagnosed as positive by PCR test were transferred to this unit so that they could benefit from a global management. The aim of our work was to focus on psychiatric patients (whether they were carriers of the COVID-19 virus or not) on their experiences during the health crisis in the first wave from March to June 2020, during the first containment. We have developed a semi-structured questionnaire composed of 8 questions, allowing to explore different aspects of the experience of the health crisis. We interviewed 12 patients (six patients affected by COVID-19 and six unaffected patients) with different mental disorders. The patients expressed themselves freely and their answers to the questions were presented question by question and separated according to the two groups. The first question was intended only for patients in the first cluster infected with the Coronavirus and the second question for patients with a family member infected with the virus. For the first question, two patients among the six infected with the Coronavirus, expressed anxiety. For the second question, two patients in the Covid+ group had a family member who had contracted the virus. One patient felt guilty, and one patient was anxious. In the Covid- group, one patient whose spouse had contracted the virus was very worried. For the third question, in the Covid+ group, four of the six patients were compliant with containment, two patients were not. In the Covid- group, four patients experienced containment between home and the hospital, and two patients experienced the entire containment at home. Regarding the fourth question, all patients (in both groups) acknowledged that the health crisis had a significant impact on their lifestyle. In response to the fifth question, all patients in the Covid+ group talked about their stay in the COVID+ unit and its setting. For patients