Jornal Internacional de Saúde Pública e Segurança

Psychological Impact of Covid-19: Stress & Resilience

Abstract

Sumitha G and Ajee KL

The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) having its origin in China has rapidly spread throughout the world to become pandemic. The infection has profound effect on various aspects of the society, including mental & physical health and also the economy of the society. To mitigate its impact, countries all over the world have adopted various measures such as social distancing, use of protective masks, hand washing, containment of people by implementing lock down in phases. As the pandemic may further weaken the health systems, resources, socio-economic status of the developing & underdeveloped countries, the strategies to halt pandemic becomes a real challenge. This study attempted to assess the psychological impacts & their resilience in terms of their perceived stress and coping ability towards it among the Indian population during the pandemic. An online survey using a snowball sampling technique was undertaken with the help of a semi structured questionnaire. A total of 278 responses were received. A total of 83% of the participants reported of moderate stress and almost 6% had high level of perceived stress. The respondents who were directly impacted by COVID-19 expressed that approx. 10% had loss of job, 21.2% experienced workloads at job, due to half attendance of the staffs & reduced working hours along with multitasking. About 29.5% of respondents stated to have better resilience during pandemic, 1.4% were not able to cope with the stress perceived and almost 69.1% were confident enough to sail through the catastrophe. With the years of lived experience, the resilience was found to be better. 7.1% of the people responded of not being able to hold on to the situation, with 5% having suicidal ideation. Mental health care needs were found in nearly 80% of the participants. Finding a resolute for the problem doesn’t limit to the governing bodies but the community participation too. Highly efficient individual based psychological rehabilitative measures require to be implemented by early intervention to the existing psychosocial problems.