• Vandad Sharifi and Atefeh Mohammadjafari.
• Department of Psychiatry, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
• Arch Iran Med. 2021 Aug 1; 24 (8): 643-650.

BackgroundGiven the overwhelming mental health consequences of infectious epidemics, timely identification and treatment of people with mental health problems is essential. In this narrative review, screening instruments and procedures for identification of mental health problems at the time of epidemic crises are reviewed and the results are discussed in the context of our experience in the recent COVID-19 epidemic in Iran.MethodsForty studies were retrieved from searches in several databases which used screening procedures for identification of mental health conditions during infectious epidemics.ResultsStudies were performed on three groups of health care workers, at-risk general population, and patients with confirmed/ suspected infection, using a wide range of instruments. Most have used screening instruments for the purpose of prevalence estimation and only 5 have included it as a health intervention while none has investigated its effectiveness.ConclusionThe evidence base for screening at the time of epidemics is weak. If it is used to identify the needs and enhance help seeking, the screening instruments should have adequate psychometric properties; moreover, their integration in the available services is strongly recommended. Original studies are needed to investigate the usefulness of mental health screening programs in crises such as the COVID-19 epidemic.© 2021 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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