[Need of mental health teams for patients hospitalized due to SARS-CoV-2 and front-line health personnel].

People vulnerable to mental health problems during the COVID-19 outbreak include hospitalized patients and frontline health professionals; mostly reported discomforts include: insomnia, anxiety and depression. Under strict infection measures, non-essential personnel such as clinical psychiatrists and psychologists are strongly discouraged from entering isolation wards; therefore, frontline health-care workers become the main personnel providing psychological interventions to patients in hospitals without knowing how to mitigate patient distress. Health personnel do not receive adequate care for due to lack of time, stigma associated with using mental health services and fear of unwanted intervention. Remote care tools such as tele-psychiatry and online psychological intervention have disadvantages for conditions requiring physical examination. The National Health Commission of China released guiding principles to reduce the psychosocial effects of the COVID-19 outbreak recommending the creation of mental health teams. In this article we present the data obtained by a mental health team in a COVID-19 hospital of the Mexican Institute of Social Security, showing differences in emotional discomfort and diagnoses of mental disorders in patients in isolation and in frontline health personnel, suggesting the need for teams made up of psychiatry and psychology staff with face-to-face on-site assessments.