key: cord-0888626-tuhiwmds authors: Panigrahi, Sasmita; Mohapatra, Sujata; Shetty, Asha P.; Baby, Renju Sussane; Singh, Arvind Kumar title: The burden & contributing factors of psychological distress across India during the COVID pandemic date: 2021-10-22 journal: Arch Psychiatr Nurs DOI: 10.1016/j.apnu.2021.10.003 sha: 3dbff4cd24f881a946b1a8cf5056532f78934db4 doc_id: 888626 cord_uid: tuhiwmds The unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic spread rapidly and engulfing the entire world, forcing people to stay home, muting the hustle and bustle of modern world with tide of fear for contracting disease and death. This brutal disease has infected millions of people worldwide, many lost their job, world economies have ravaged and many more uncountable consequences. OBJECTIVE: To assess the psychological distress due to COVID-19 outbreak and to determine contributing factors towards psychological distress. METHOD: A cross-sectional survey was conducted between 12th May-20th June 2020 & 1537 valid responses were received. Modified K10 scale was used to assess psychological distress. Binary logistic regression analysis was used to determine extent of relationship between the contributing factors and psychological distress scale by estimating the odds of having significant stress with P ≤ 0.05. RESULT: A total of 1537 valid responses were obtained. The overall psychological distress score was 19.79±6.75 which implies mild psychological distress. Analysis of degree of psychological distress revealed 815 (53.0%) with no psychological distress, 385 (25.0%) mild, 194 (12.6%) moderate and 143 respondents (9.3%) had severe degree of psychological distress. Females psychological distress was 1.448 times as compared to male (C.I 0.191-10.986). The odds of having significant psychological distress for above 60yrs as compared to 16-30years. Shop owner & business man had more stress in compared to professionals (OR 1.176, C.I 0.058-2.362). As compared to married, the psychological distress was 13.203 times higher among divorcee/separated (.786-221.787) and 3.629 times higher among unmarried (.376-35.054). CONCLUSION: This study showed 39.2% of the subject had psychological distress which is quite high. So, government and other policy makers has to develop strategy to relieve psychological distress among indian population. consequences. It is obvious that individuals psychological state will be altered due to unpredictability of COVID-19 outbreak, fast-spreading of disease, continuous flashing of COVID updates in mass media and social networking sites. However, the extent to which these factors are associated with psychological wellbeing during a pandemic is not clear. The previous study also explained that psychological wellbeing of individual users to be affected tremendously during this kind of pandemic outbreak. Therefore, in this current study investigators tries to understand the psychological impact of COVID 19 outbreak and identify potential factors that contribute to psychological distress among people during this devastating outbreak. Further, the study findings will help to alleviate mental health morbidities and help stakeholders to formulates guidelines to improve psychological wellbeing. We took this study intending to assess the psychological distress due to COVID-19 outbreak and determine contributing factors towards the psychological distress. A cross-sectional online survey was conducted to evaluate the psychological state of the public during this COVID-19 pandemic from 12th May to 20th June 2020. People above the age of 16 years and who could answer digitally were included to participate in this study. participation in the study is purely voluntary and they are free to withdraw themselves from the study without giving any reason, confidentiality and anonymity of their response will be maintained. The data were organized and analysed by using IBM SPSS 20.0 software. Categorical data were analysed by frequency and percentage, degree of psychological distress was by the mean & SD. Binomial logistic regression analysis was used to evaluate predictors of psychological distress. The psychological distress scale was dichotomised into 2 categories; a score below 19 was designated as no distress and score above 19 was taken as psychological distress. By 20th June, total 1540 responses were received and out of which1537 participants had provided complete data regarding study variables. Responses were received from maximum states of India except for Andaman & Nicobar and Jammu & Kashmir. Maximum responses were from Odisha (39.8%), West Bengal (14.5%) and Kerala (7.7%). (Fig-1) The basic characteristics of study participants are depicted in Table- The psychological distress of the general population during COVID-19 outbreak was determined by modified K10 scale. The overall score was calculated as 19.79±6.75 which shows mild psychological distress; among them, 815(53.0%) were found to be no It was also determined that there was a difference in psychological distress from May than June 2020. The difference of mean psychological distress score from 1st week of data collection till the last week was 20.35, 19.66, 18.48, 17.73, 21.33, 20.14 respectively. It shows psychological distress is reducing gradually till the end of May and again it increased due to release of lockdown. (Fig.3) Questions were asked to general population to identify the reason of their worries or psychological distress during COVID 19 outbreak, it reveals that only 44.2% of the people were having fear of getting disease, 49.4% were stressed due to lockdown, 71% of people were not having any problem with frequent hand washing & wearing of mask, 44.6% had compromise in financial, 39% had faced problem to meet their food needs, 62.6% expressed that continuous COVID related news in mass media increases their stress level, nearly 69% of people worried due to non-availability of confirmed treatment & vaccine against COVID-19, 48.4% of partakers expressed that they were feeling safe in comparison to other country, 67.6% of participants revealed that, they will be stigmatised if they found COVID 19 positive, 32.5% disclosed that they were worried due to inadequate supply of mask, hand sanitizer, 64.8% replied that steps of government were inadequate for prevention and control of COVID-19 and only 4.7% of them were faced domestic violence during lock down period. In the present study, the mean psychological distress score was 19.79±6.75, among them 815(53.0%) were found to be no psychological distress, 385(25.0%) had mild degree of psychological distress, 194 (12.6%) participants had moderate degree of psychological distress and 143 respondents (9.3%) had severe degree of psychological distress which is notable as compared with previous mental health of general public. This is supported by other study that has revealed an overall increase of mental distress; mean GHQ-12 score increased The sociodemographic factors that contributing to psychological stress differed widely between studies. In this present study, younger adults were less likely to develop psychological distress (OR<1) as compared to age >60years (OR 1.175, CI 0.780-1.770). It may be due to younger people are more exposed to smart phone & social medias. In contrary, studies reveal that people 40 years old or below had an increased risk of anxiety than those above 40 years old. 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