Bhakat Priya, Das Kakoli
Priya Bhakat is associated with Southeast Regional Service Commission, New Brunswick, Canada.
Kakoli Das is a Senior Doctoral Scholar at Institute of Development Studies Kolkata & Assistant Professor, CDOE, Vidyasagar University, India.
J Affect Disord Rep. 2023 Apr;12:100494. doi: 10.1016/j.jadr.2023.100494. Epub 2023 Feb 3.
India has been badly affected by Covid-19 not only in terms of human lives but also has a long-term effect on mental health of the population. This paper is an attempt to understand the psychological effects of the pandemic on the college and university students in India after the second wave of COVID-19 outbreak and its associated factors.
A web-based survey was conducted to collect information from the students both at individual and household level. The study applied binary and multivariate logistic regression to estimate the adjusted and unadjusted marginal effects of the predictor variables.
Results show a significant increase in mental health concerns during the second wave of the pandemic, as compared to the first year. The key factors contributing to the higher prevalence of depression, anxiety, and stress are the difficulties faced in the adaptation to the new way of learning, fear of discontinuation of education due to financial constraints faced by household, limited physical interaction, and prolonged screen-time during the pandemic.
The study has some limitations regarding selection of the sample as the survey was web-based. Also, the mental health situation of the students is self-reported and the study does not consider the prevailing mental health issues before the pandemic.
The study recommends initiatives like offering counselling classes and strategies to cope up with mental health disorders. Further, there is a need to conduct follow-up studies to assess the long-term impacts of prolonged home quarantine on the mental health of the students.
印度受到新冠疫情的严重影响，不仅在人员生命方面，而且对民众的心理健康产生了长期影响。本文旨在了解第二波新冠疫情爆发后，疫情对印度大学生的心理影响及其相关因素。
开展了一项基于网络的调查，以收集学生个人和家庭层面的信息。该研究应用二元和多元逻辑回归来估计预测变量的调整后和未调整的边际效应。
结果显示，与第一年相比，疫情第二波期间心理健康问题显著增加。导致抑郁、焦虑和压力患病率较高的关键因素包括适应新学习方式面临的困难、因家庭面临经济困难而担心教育中断、身体接触有限以及疫情期间屏幕使用时间过长。
由于调查基于网络，该研究在样本选择方面存在一些局限性。此外，学生的心理健康状况是自我报告的，且该研究未考虑疫情前普遍存在的心理健康问题。
该研究建议采取提供心理咨询课程和应对心理健康障碍的策略等举措。此外，有必要进行后续研究，以评估长期居家隔离对学生心理健康的长期影响。
