Open AccessAnxieties and Fears: A Sociological Study of Mental Health of Students in COVID-19 Pandemic
Author(s) -
Rashi Bhargava,
Nayana Borgohain,
I. L. Prathyusha Naidu,
Samiksha Bhatnagar,
Shipra Lakra,
Vertika Shukla
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
vantage : journal of thermatic analysis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2582-7391
DOI - 10.52253/vjta.2020.v02i01.05
Subject(s) - mental health , pandemic , psychological resilience , covid-19 , sociological imagination , perspective (graphical) , period (music) , psychology , sociology , sociological theory , social psychology , social science , medicine , psychiatry , physics , disease , pathology , artificial intelligence , computer science , acoustics , infectious disease (medical specialty)
This paper aims to explore the impact of COVID-19 and the implications of pandemicinduced changes on the mental health of students. The study was conducted amongst currentlyenrolled college (undergraduate) and 12th-grade students in Delhi-NCR. Apart from this,parents and professionals were also consulted. This paper approaches the issue of mentalhealth from a sociological perspective to create a comprehensive understanding of the factorswhich create anxieties and fears amongst students in times of COVID-19 induced pandemic.The study began with the assumption that mental health is not only a biological andpsychological issue but needs to be contextualized in societal structures and societyindividual relationship. Students as a social group are primarily affected by institutions ofeducation and family, the study thus explores how the three are intertwined. The paper endswith the contention that social integration and regulation are primary concepts through whichindividual resilience can be studied, understood and theorised. It also highlights that despitethe commonsensical belief that the current times are different from the societal normal, astudy like this offers a window to understand the structural continuities of the pre-pandemicperiod into the pandemic period.