Chief physician of “Kashchenko”: because of the pandemic, there was a jump in anxiety-depressive disorders 
Georgy Kostyuk, chief physician of the psychiatric hospital No. 1 named after Alekseev (known as “Kashchenko”), called the fears and controversies about vaccination associated with the pandemic as dangerous for the psyche. The interview with him was published by the RBC edition.
According to the Russian psychiatrist, against the background of the spread of the coronavirus, there has been a surge in anxiety-depressive disorders. “There are serious mental illnesses, primarily chronic, once manifested, they accompany a person for the rest of his life. And there are diseases-disorders associated with stress, situations, with circumstances. The number of such disorders increased during the pandemic, “he said.
According to Kostyuk, this did not lead to an increase in the number of visits, since Russians have a fear not only of vaccinations, but also of psychiatry. Most often they asked for help from spring to late summer this year, but now the situation has stabilized. Kostyuk also noted that against the backdrop of the pandemic, the demand for antidepressants and alcoholic beverages has increased.
“When I say that people do not apply, this is due to the fact that traditionally the place of mental health care is a psychiatric hospital or a neuropsychiatric dispensary. These are structures that worked in the Soviet Union and now, and they are not perceived very positively, and people do not seek to come there, “said the doctor. He added that now there are Mental Health Advisory Centers in Moscow, where the patient can go without fear of being registered.