مجله دانشکده پزشکی اصفهان
پیاپی 570 (هفته دوم خرداد 1399)

The emergence of a novel coronavirus causing acute respiratory syndrome called coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) in late 2019 in China has now become a global concern. The World Health Organization (WHO) in January 2020 declared the novel coronavirus outbreak as a public health emergency of international concern. The morphology and chemical structure of the novel coronavirus are very similar to other human coronaviruses, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS) and the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS).

This narrative review was conducted from March to April 2020. Keywords of Coronavirus, SARS, MERS, COVID-19, Environment, Air, Disinfection, Water, and Wastewater were searched in important databases including PubMed, Science direct, and Google scholar. In this review, environmental factors affecting the transmission of coronaviruses were investigated with emphasis on survival and resistance in different environments as well as appropriate disinfectants for inactivation of the viruses.

According to the collected evidence about the novel coronavirus and other human coronaviruses, the virus is transmitted directly through oral and nasal secretions and respiratory droplets, as well as indirect transmission through the contact of virus-contaminated hands to the mucous membrane of nose and eyes.

Because of the lack of definitive medical treatment for the novel coronavirus and the role of environment in transmission of the virus, prevention of virus transmission via protection of environmental health and cutting off the transmission chain is essential.

In addition to physical effects, the prevalence of COVID-19 has serious psychological consequences. The aim of this study was to provide a brief overview of the psychological consequences of the pandemic crisis of COVID-19 disease, and the strategies of health psychology in dealing with this crisis.

In this review study that was done in March 2020, indexed articles on psychology and corona were used at the ProQuest, Pubmed, Scientific Information Database (SID), Ovid, Iranmedex, Science direct, Springer, google scholar, Scopus database.

It was determined by reviewing reliable sources that psychological consequences of COVID-19 disease were different among health stuff, general population, infected patients, their families, and children, separately.

From the perspective of health psychology, care strategies for different spectrums of individuals and ultimately reducing the effects of quarantine have been proposed. Furthermore, psychoneuroimmunological research evidence of the effects of stress and negative psychological consequences on immune function and greater vulnerability to coronavirus has also been discussed.

The world is embroiled in a pandemic of a new coronavirus at the end of 2019 and early in 2020, with such a large scale that it has severely involved the political, economic, and social systems in most countries around the world. The scale of the crisis is so widespread that many experts believe that the post-corona world will be substantially different from the pre-corona world. In the face of this massive epidemic, how people perceive risk and how to risk is communicated, plays a central role in deciding and choosing people's behavior. Fighting with this emerging phenomenon requires mobilizing all the possibilities of society and helping all people in the field of empathy and altruism. In this article, we briefly review aspects of the important concept of risk perception and communication in this pervasive crisis.