Impact on Mental Health of students due to restriction caused by COVID-19 pandemic: Cross-sectional study

Chaudhary, A. P.; Sonar, N. S.; Banerjee, M.; TR, J.; Yadav, S.

Abstract Background: The goal of the study was to investigate fear, depression and anxiety symptoms among students of India due to COVID-19 pandemic and its restriction. Method: The cross-sectional web-based research was conducted between mid-November and mid-December 2020 with the objective of understanding the psychological and behavioral consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic effect on students due to the constraint of forced control. The study included a) socio-demographic questions such as age, gender, degree enrolled and any member of the family infected with COVID-19, b) psychometric scales evaluating the psychological and behavioral impact caused by COVID-19 pandemic restrictions such as fear of the COVID-19 scale (FCV-19S), depression by the Brief Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) depression scale, and anxiety by the Generalized Anxiety Disorder scale (GAD-7). Results: Total number of 324 students participated in this study in which 44.4% were male and 55.6% were female. Fear of COVID-19 scale showed 68.8% student had high fear among students, 24.4% had moderate to severe depression and 51.5% had moderate to severe anxiety. The correlation between fear of COVID-19 scale (FCV-19s) and Generalized Anxiety scale (GAD-7) was found to be 0.474 and 0.492 was found between fear of COVID-19 (FCV-19s) scale and brief patient health questionnaire (PHQ-9) Conclusion: This research concludes that there is a very strong fear of COVID-19 among students, along with anxiety and depression. This study also concludes that the fear of the COVID-19 scale and the GAD-7 and PHQ-9 scales have a strong positive correlation.