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

Abstract

Highlights To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study focused on COVID-19 associated mental health among the home-quarantined Bangladeshi university and college students. University students had greater psychological impact due to COVID-19 than college students. Perceived COVID-19 symptoms were significantly associated with higher scores in 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 scores (B=7.52, 95% CI: 3.58 to 11.45). Physical exercise was significantly associated in lowering scores of DASS depression subscale (B= -2.10, 95% CI: -4.02 to -0.17) Financial uncertainty, fear of COVID-19 infection, inadequate valid information on COVID-19, and excessive exposure to COVID-19 news on social & mass media had significant negative impact on students’ mental health.

The association between financial hardship and mental health difficulties among adult wage earners during the COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh: Findings from a cross-sectional analysis

“…Butterworth et al reported in 2009 with the agreement of our study that food insecurity causes most serious mental health effects (Butterworth et al, 2009). Furthermore, perceiving inadequate food supply as a stressor was significantly associated with both anxiety and depressive symptoms in the present study which is consistent with a recent study which was conducted on Bangladeshi students (Khan et al, 2020). Although the multivariate analysis did not find any significant relationship of the stressor "increased price in daily commodities" with anxiety, it was found to be strongly associated with depressive symptoms even in multivariate regression.…”

“…This could be because of the concern about the future financial crisis as 79.63% of respondents perceived the upcoming financial crisis as a stressor (Table 3). Financial uncertainty was reported as significantly associated with anxiety and depression (Khan et al, 2020). The particular interest of the current study was to explore the association between financial hardship and mental health difficulties.…”

“…Additionally, the price of the daily commodities is rising day by day as the production and supply have been disrupted seriously. The poor people are the main sufferers of this as it is so tough for them to survive with lower or no income at all during this pandemic situation and financial uncertainty is more experienced by them (Bhuiyan et al, 2020;Khan et al, 2020). Price hike and income fallout together are creating challenges on people especially on those who strive to live for the basic needs of their family.…”

Canadian Adolescents’ Internalized Symptoms in Pandemic Times: Sex Differences and Association with Sociodemographic Characteristics, Confinement Habits, and Support

“…Teenagers who spent more time exercising reported more positive affects, like feeling happy, valued, and confident about the future, which is not surprising given the similar results from several studies on adult populations in confinement [44] [59]. Teenagers who experienced depression symptoms were perhaps less likely to engage in physical activity because they lacked energy [58].…”

Universal Health Coverage and COVID-19 Pandemic: A Bangladesh Perspective

“…The recent COVID-19 is an ongoing global public health crisis according to WHO declaration on 30 th January, 2020 which was first emerged at Wuhan city of China [5], [6]. In Bangladesh, Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) declared the first confirmed cases on 8 th March, 2020 [7]. After that country has taken numerous control measures fighting against COVID-19 though these available control measures are significantly influenced by the knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) towards COVID-19 [8].…”