Open AccessDepression and anxiety among university students during the COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh: A web-based cross-sectional survey
Author(s) -
Md. Akhtarul Islam,
Sutapa Dey Barna,
Hasin Raihan,
Md. Nafiul Alam Khan,
Tanvir Hossain
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0238162
Subject(s) - anxiety , cross sectional study , depression (economics) , pandemic , logistic regression , medicine , covid-19 , psychiatry , psychology , clinical psychology , demography , disease , sociology , macroeconomics , pathology , infectious disease (medical specialty) , economics
The purpose of this study was to investigate the prevalence of depression and anxiety among Bangladeshi university students during the COVID-19 pandemic. It also aimed at identifying the determinants of depression and anxiety. A total of 476 university students living in Bangladesh participated in this cross-sectional web-based survey. A standardized e-questionnaire was generated using the Google Form, and the link was shared through social media—Facebook. The information was analyzed in three consecutive levels, such as univariate, bivariate, and multivariate analysis. Students were experiencing heightened depression and anxiety. Around 15% of the students reportedly had moderately severe depression, whereas 18.1% were severely suffering from anxiety. The binary logistic regression suggests that older students have greater depression (OR = 2.886, 95% CI = 0.961–8.669). It is also evident that students who provided private tuition in the pre-pandemic period had depression (OR = 1.199, 95% CI = 0.736–1.952). It is expected that both the government and universities could work together to fix the academic delays and financial problems to reduce depression and anxiety among university students.