Mental health of the Mexican population during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rodríguez-Hernández, Cristina; Medrano-Espinosa, Omar; Hernández-Sánchez, Ariadne

INTRODUCTION The COVID-19 pandemic has also affected mental health. OBJECTIVE To evaluate Mexican population mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic by measuring symptoms of stress, depression, anxiety and insomnia, as well as resilience. METHODS Cross-sectional, descriptive, observational study. A survey was carried out to collect sociodemographic data, and the Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale 21 (DASS 21), Athens Insomnia Scale and the 14-item Resilience Scale (RS-14) were applied. Central tendency and dispersion measures were obtained for quantitative variables and frequencies for qualitative variables. The chi-square test was used for bivariate analysis; alpha level was 0.05. RESULTS 1,667 individuals with a mean age of 33.78 ± 10.79 years were analyzed. On DASS 21, a mean of 9.7 points (normal) was found, as well as 7.10 for anxiety (normal) and 6.73 for depression (normal). On Athens Insomnia Scale, a mean of 9.33 points (moderate alteration), and on the RS-14 scale, 69.13 points (high resilience) were obtained. CONCLUSIONS Symptoms' intensity was lower than expected in comparison with that recorded in other populations, probably due to the high levels of resilience of the Mexican population.