The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on mental health & wellbeing among home-quarantined Bangladeshi students: A cross-sectional pilot study

Abstract

Background: COVID-19 is imposing threat both on physical and mental health since its outbreak. Bangladesh adopted lockdown strategy with potential consequences on day to day life, mental and physical health and this study aims to explore the impact of COVID-19 on mental health and wellbeing among Bangladeshi students. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted between 9th and 23th April 2020 among 505 college and university students. Data was collected by using online questionnaire including DASS 21 and IES. Descriptive analysis and bivariate linear regression were performed to examine the association of variables. Results: 28.5 % of the respondents had stress, 33.3% anxiety, 46.92% depression from mild to extremely severe, according to DASS 21 and 69.31% had event-specific distress from mild to severe in terms of severity according to IES. Perceiving physical symptoms as COVID-19 was significantly associated with DASS stress subscale (B=3.71, 95% CI: 1.01 to 6.40), DASS anxiety subscale (B= 3.95, 95% CI: 1.95 to 5.96), DASS depression subscale (B=3.82, 95% CI: 0.97 to 6.67) and IES scale (B=7.52, 95% CI: 3.58 to 11.45). Additionally, fear of infection, financial uncertainty, inadequate food supply, absence of physical exercise and limited or no recreational activity had significant association with stress, anxiety, depression and post-traumatic symptoms. Conclusion: This COVID-19 outbreak imposes psychological consequences on people to a great extent which requires attention from the concerned authorities to cope with this situation mentally. The perception about the outbreak can also play a big role in psychological impact.

Can physical activity protect against depression and anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic? A rapid systematic review

“…Four studies had a prospective longitudinal design [26,29,39,36], one was a cross-sectional study with a retrospective measure of the exposure factor (henceforth treated as retrospective) [5], and 16 were crosssectional studies [9, 23-25, 27, 29-35, 37, 6, 38, 40, 28, 41]. A total of 7 studies were conducted in Asia [24,25,27,30,33,39,40], 6 in Europe [9,26,31,32,35,36], 3 in South America [28,29,6], 3 in North America [23,34,5], one in Oceania [38] and one study included a multinational sample [37].…”

“…Results are summarized and presented in table 2. Out of 9 studies reporting analyses on the association between the overall volume of PA and depression, 6 studies showed that more PA is signi cantly associated with less depression symptoms [23,25,32,33,35,37], and 3 out of 8 studies investigating the association between the overall volume of PA and anxiety symptoms showed that more PA is signi cantly associated with less anxiety symptoms [25,32,35]. 3 out of 5 studies reported higher frequencies of PA to be signi cantly associated with less depression [27,29,36] and 2 out of 4 studies to be signi cantly associated with less anxiety [27,29].…”

Psychological states of Bangladeshi people four months after the COVID-19 pandemic: An online survey

“…Compared to a previous Bangladeshi study (assessing anxiety and panic disorder) conducted at the initial stage (March 29 to April 06, 2020) of the pandemic, the prevalence of anxiety was higher in the present study (46.0% vs. 37.3%) ( Islam et al., 2020a ). Another study conducted among Bangladeshi students during the COVID-19 pandemic reported the prevalence rates of depression to be 46.9%, anxiety to be 33.3%, and stress to be 28.5% ( Khan et al., 2020 ). The prevalence of depression, anxiety, and stress was also higher in the present study than that reported in Chinese people during the initial stage of the COVID-19 outbreak ( Wang et al., 2020a ).…”

“…In a study conducted among Bangladeshi people at the initial stage of the pandemic, it had been revealed that 37.3% of participants had generalized anxiety disorder ( Islam et al., 2020a ). Furthermore, a study conducted among Bangladeshi home-quarantined students showed that 46.92% had depression, 33.28% had anxiety, and 28.5% had stress ( Khan et al., 2020 ).…”

<p>Mental Health Impact of COVID-19 on Quarantine Hotel Employees in China</p>

“…Although studies have suggested that experiencing a severe infectious disease epidemic increases the prevalence of mental health issues, [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] it is difficult to find relevant literature or empirical studies that explore quarantine hotel employees faced with the challenge of psychological resilience. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the mental health status and psychological impact on quarantine hotel employees during the COVID-19 pandemic.…”