Determinants of Anxiety And Depression Among Bangladeshi Adults During COVID-19 Lockdown

Abstract

Background: Human health and well-being are adversely affected by the multidimensional effects of COVID-19. This study examined the prevalence of anxiety and depression, and their association with some less explored factors like perceived and relative health status, having elderly members in the family, fear for own and family future, and others from the Asian context.Methods: Using a cross-sectional online survey, data were collected from the population aged 18 and above years, on socio-demographic and economic attributes, and two separate twelve-item scales were used to assess the level of anxiety and depression. The score of anxiety (x=21.74 and s=8.20; α=0.897) and depression (x=24.38 and s =10.30; α=0.937) were ranges from 12 to 60. High scores of anxiety and depression scales indicate higher levels of anxiety and depression. Both descriptive and multivariate analyses were performed to report the level of anxiety and depression by socio-demographic and other attributes; multivariate linear regression (forwarded method) was used to analyze the effects of each predictor on the anxiety and depression scores.Results: The findings revealed that respondents' concern for their family's future has a significant positive effect on anxiety scores but has a significant negative effect on depression scores; On the other hand, having elderly family members has a significant association with lower anxiety scores but higher depression scores. Poor conditions of (1) perceived physical health status in comparison with others, (2) self-evaluated physical health status, and (3) perceived physical health status in comparison to before COVID-19 lead to significantly higher anxiety scores. Anxiety score remained the most critical factor among all the predictors in explaining depression score. Limitations: Anxiety and depression of all people are not reflected in the results as we used online platforms to collect data. Some misclassifications might occur for using self-reported outcome measures and socially desirable responses collected through the cross-sectional survey. Conclusions: The increased level of anxiety and depression during COVID-19 of adult people in Bangladesh are associated with several factors of which their greater concern about the future of their own and family members and health-related attributes are important. These findings may lead to developing interventions to reduce the psychological crisis during the pandemic in Bangladesh.Funding Information: None.Declaration of Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.Ethics Approval Statement: The research was conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration as revised 1989. Informed consent.