Abstract
The World Health Organization declares coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) as a pandemic, and The World Economic Forum argues that the COVID-19-induced global lockdown is the biggest psychological experiment. This study is an attempt to empirically evaluate the possible adverse psychosocial effects caused by COVID-19-related lockdown, if any. To do so, a cross-sectional study is conducted based on a comprehensive online survey using snowball sampling to analyze the level of social and psychological impacts (i.e., stress, belief in stakeholders, fear of losing job, and life satisfaction) during the early stage of the outbreak in Pakistan. The questionnaire is filled out by the residents in Pakistan including working professionals and students (sample size is 428). We find that the development of stress due to COVID-19-induced lockdown is particularly because of mood swings. Additionally, a higher prevalence of stress in the children of highly educated mothers is evident (95% confidence). To assess the belief in stakeholders, we focus gender, demographics, and education. It is observed that parental education and age significantly affect the belief in several stakeholders (i.e., government, media, religious clerics, and family). The lockdown-induced fear of losing job is lower in female and male children whose fathers are graduates. Lastly, we observe that food storage and “no fear of losing job” significantly increases the odds of life satisfaction. These findings have important implications in the context of social insurance, parental education, and policy related to COVID-19 at various levels. This study further facilitates to understand the factors that might affect the mental health and life satisfaction of people during such pandemics.
Highlights
The world is facing one of the most dangerous challenges in our lifetime due to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), which has spread to almost every country (211 countries and territories to be specific) on the global map (Pettersson et al, 2020)
Stylized facts from this study reveal that approximately 38% of the respondents are stressed “sometimes,” and 22% of them are stressed “often” in the context of lockdown related to COVID-19 (Figure 3)
In connection to World Health Organization (WHO)’s considerations about the psychological impacts of COVID-19 pandemic, this study is considered an initial effort to provide a thorough evaluation of the possible impacts of COVID-19-induced lockdown on public psychology—in Pakistan
Summary
The world is facing one of the most dangerous challenges in our lifetime due to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), which has spread to almost every country (211 countries and territories to be specific) on the global map (Pettersson et al, 2020). The effects caused by COVID-19 apart from adverse health are becoming eminent in different dimensions such as social, psychological, and economic. COVID19 affected the first patient in late November 2019, and the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the phenomena as a Public Health Emergency of (international concern). COVID-19, known as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is a major outbreak after SARSCoV-1, which spread in the year 2002. As of 18th April 2020, about 1.5 million people have been confirmed to be affected by COVID-19 and more than 1,00,000 are dead due to this global outbreak. WHO has advised a quarantine policy to limit the spread of the virus, and more than onethird of the global population is under some form of isolation (Kaplan et al, 2020)
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