Hotline offers counseling amid outbreak

"The responsibility to soothe people's nerves and quickly react to their feelings sets the bar high for us," said Lin, adding that special psychological supervisors have been asked to provide psychological consultation to the counselors.

"It's a way to ease pressure on our counselors," she said.

She said people might face post-traumatic stress disorder after the outbreak.

"We could expect there will be a certain period of time when more people would need intervention to help overcome the psychological trauma they have encountered," said Lin.

On Jan 27, the National Health Commission released the guiding principles for emergency psychological crisis intervention to include psychological crisis intervention as part of epidemic prevention and control measures to relieve the psychological trauma caused by the disease.

Emergency room

"Our job is more like working in an emergency room to mostly alleviate emotional pressures of callers," said Wang Ke, a psychological counselor for the Beijing Normal University's mental counseling hotline.

"There are some limitations to psychological counseling since we can't see each other. But I feel lucky to be making my own efforts in combating the epidemic," said the 25-year-old.

Wuhan, Hubei province, also offered psychological counseling to the medical staff and patients at the different temporary hospitals, which have now been closed.

Psychologists and psychiatrists from across the country, especially in Beijing and Shanghai, recently took a high-speed train to Wuhan to provide psychological counseling to people in need of help at the epidemic center.