Open AccessImpact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Mental Health of College Students in India: Cross-sectional Web-Based Study
Author(s) -
Amar Prashad Chaudhary,
Narayan Sah Sonar,
Jamuna Tr,
Moumita Banerjee,
Shailesh Yadav
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
jmirx med
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2563-6316
DOI - 10.2196/28158
Subject(s) - anxiety , mental health , pandemic , depression (economics) , covid-19 , cross sectional study , clinical psychology , patient health questionnaire , psychiatry , psychology , scale (ratio) , medicine , disease , depressive symptoms , pathology , infectious disease (medical specialty) , economics , macroeconomics , physics , quantum mechanics
Background The COVID-19 pandemic has created a mental health crisis among college students in India due to lockdown restrictions, overwhelming numbers of COVID-19 cases, financial difficulty, etc. This mental health crisis has led to high degrees of fear, anxiety, and depression among college students. Objective The aim of this study is to investigate symptoms of fear, depression, and anxiety due to the COVID-19 pandemic among college students in India. Methods This cross-sectional web-based study was conducted using a Google Forms questionnaire. The Google Form included a sociodemographic questionnaire and psychometric scales evaluating the psychological and behavioral impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, both qualitative and quantitative analyses were performed in the study. Results A total of 324 college students participated in this study, of whom 180 (55.6%) were male and 144 (44.4%) were female. After assessment of the psychometric scales, it was found that of the 324 students, 223 (68.8%) had high fear of COVID-19, 93 (28.7%) had moderate to severe depression, and 167 (51.5%) had mild to severe anxiety. Among the identified risk factors, having a family member who was infected with COVID-19 was significantly associated with anxiety and depression, with P values of .02 and .001, respectively. In addition, the correlations of the Fear of COVID-19 Scale with the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 scale and the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 were found to be 0.492 and 0.474, respectively. Conclusions This research concludes that there is a very high fear of COVID-19 among students, along with anxiety and depression symptoms. This study also concludes that the Fear of COVID-19 Scale has a moderate positive correlation with the anxiety and depression scales, respectively.