COVID-19: A Psychosocial Perspective

Abstract

The World Health Organization declares coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) as a pandemic, and The World Economic Forum argues that the COVID-19-induced global lockdown is the biggest psychological experiment. This study is an attempt to empirically evaluate the possible adverse psychosocial effects caused by COVID-19-related lockdown, if any. To do so, a cross-sectional study is conducted based on a comprehensive online survey using snowball sampling to analyze the level of social and psychological impacts (i.e., stress, belief in stakeholders, fear of losing job, and life satisfaction) during the early stage of the outbreak in Pakistan. The questionnaire is filled out by the residents in Pakistan including working professionals and students (sample size is 428). We find that the development of stress due to COVID-19-induced lockdown is particularly because of mood swings. Additionally, a higher prevalence of stress in the children of highly educated mothers is evident (95% confidence). To assess the belief in stakeholders, we focus gender, demographics, and education. It is observed that parental education and age significantly affect the belief in several stakeholders (i.e., government, media, religious clerics, and family). The lockdown-induced fear of losing job is lower in female and male children whose fathers are graduates. Lastly, we observe that food storage and “no fear of losing job” significantly increases the odds of life satisfaction. These findings have important implications in the context of social insurance, parental education, and policy related to COVID-19 at various levels. This study further facilitates to understand the factors that might affect the mental health and life satisfaction of people during such pandemics.

Psychosocial Aspects During the First Wave of COVID-19 Infection in South Africa

“…This study confirms a large percentage of participants who completed the study survey experienced adverse psychosocial effects associated with COVID-19 and lockdown in a sample of South Africans. This finding is similar to studies conducted in several countries (2,(12)(13)(14)(15). Notably, our study found that more than a third of the participants reported psychological problems as a result of the pandemic.…”

Psychosocial Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic in Libya: A Cross-Sectional Study

“…This poor confidence in the authorities fuels fear and panic among the public, which has an adverse impact on psychosocial well-being. This finding is supported by the literature, where fear of being infected and that the pandemic was hard to control were sources of mental burdens (Huang and Zhao, 2020;Raza et al, 2020).…”

“…These restrictive measures can contribute to adverse psychosocial outcomes such as post-traumatic stress symptoms, fear of spreading the infection to family members, anger, frustration, loneliness, denial, confusion, insomnia, and extreme behaviors, including suicide (Raza et al, 2020;Serafini et al, 2020). In a study investigating the mental health burden on the German public during the COVID-19 pandemic, Bauerle et al (2020) reported a significant increase in the prevalence of generalized anxiety, psychological distress, and COVID-19-related fear.…”

Relationships Between the Life Satisfaction, Meaning in Life, Hope and COVID-19 Fear for Turkish Adults During the COVID-19 Outbreak

“…There are different research results on gender and life satisfaction during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the findings, coronavirus pandemic causes more psychological effects in females ( Wang D. et al, 2020 ) and females have less life satisfaction than males ( Raza et al, 2020 ). Additionally, our finding supports the finding of Karataş and Tagay (2020) that gender was not significant predictors of the level of resilience in adults.…”