Quebec Curfew May Increase Feelings of Loneliness: Psychiatrist
TORONTO -- Sparked by an explosion of COVID-19 cases, Quebec’s month-long curfew could increase people’s feelings of loneliness, one expert warned, urging people to maintain personal connections and physical activity. “People are getting fed up with the uncertainty.” Roger McIntyre, a psychiatry and pharmacology professor from the University of Toronto, told CTV News Channel on Sunday. McIntyre understands how maddening it must be for Quebecers to contend with yet another measure when they are already facing economic strife under COVID-19 public health restrictions.
A phone call may be all it takes to ease pandemic loneliness: study
TORONTO -- Give your friends and family a call, it may just ease the pandemic loneliness, depression and anxiety that are taking hold. A study published in the peer-reviewed journal JAMA Psychiatry suggests that phone calls can help people who are left feeling alone and isolated during the pandemic, no training required. This isn’t overly surprising, for humans have a basic need to connect with others, said Roger McIntyre, a psychiatry and pharmacology professor at the University of Toronto. “It speaks to the fact that as people, as human beings, we need to have contact. That is an undeniable fact. It’s in our DNA, years of evolution. We’re social organisms, we need contact,” McIntyre told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview on Wednesday. The study aimed to quickly address the issue of loneliness during the pandemic and focused on socially isolated adults who...