Effect of ‘’ chant on mental health of mild to moderate COVID-19 infections: A prospective, interventional, multicentric study

Abstract

Patients with COVID-19 infections have been shown to be under tremendous psychological stress. Chanting the has been shown to ameliorate the stress markers in other conditions. Hence, we envisaged the present study to evaluate the effect of chanting the in our patients presenting with mild-to-moderate COVID-19 infections.A multicenter, prospective open label study was carried out in adults diagnosed with mild-to-moderate COVID-19 infections confirmed by reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test. General anxiety disorder-7 (GAD-7) scale was used for evaluating the psychological well-being of study participants.One-hundred and twenty patients were recruited. Most of the patients felt anxious, worried that something might happen to them at baseline and the proportion has significantly reduced post-intervention (p < 0.0001). The mean (SD) score of GAD scale at baseline was 6.1 (3.4) and was significantly (p<0.0001) reduced after the intervention [0.5 (0.9)]. Similarly, post-intervention almost all the patients either did not have any symptoms of GAD or had only mild compared to the baseline.We observed a significant reduction in the anxiety levels following daily chanting of in mild to moderate COVID-19 patients. A large well designed controlled clinical trial must be done for further confirmation of the findings from the present study.