Factors Influencing Mental Health During Covid-19 Outbreak: An Exploratory Survey among Indian Population

Abstract

Introduction: This paper fulfills an identified need to study the mental health status of the population under situations like lockdown, thereby helping fill a persistent gap in Indian research on this issue, and present research on the impact of lockdown on mental health during epidemics is limited, especially in India. This study aims to scale the association between anxiety and sociodemographic factors during the coronavirus disease 2019 lockdown among the general Indian population.Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional nationwide study designed to enroll the general population. The inclusion criteria for this study were Indian citizens aged 18 years and above. The study was conducted from March 29, 2020, to April 12, 2020, using an online google questionnaire. The anxiety among respondents was detected and measured using a Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) Scale, which consists of seven questions (in English), that is, GAD-7.Results: Responders were 392, and from these participants, the prevalence of anxiety was 25.3%. The predictors of anxiety were gender, religion, occupation as business/self-employed, marital status, family size, health status, and sleep deprivation based on the bivariate logistic regression analysis.Conclusion: This study reports the early prevalence of anxiety among the Indian population who were grounded at their homes during lockdown due to coronavirus pandemic in the country.