Abstract
BackgroundThe 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.ObjectiveThe aim of this study is to investigate symptoms of fear, depression, and anxiety due to the COVID-19 pandemic among college students in India.MethodsThis 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.ResultsA 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.ConclusionsThis 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.
Highlights
Communicable diseases such as herpes and legionnaires disease in the 1970s, HIV, Ebola, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), and currently, COVID-19, continue to be devastating for global health, creating increasing pressure on people worldwide
37/324 participants (11.4%) reported that one of their family members had become infected with COVID-19, which seems to a be very low percentage compared with the recent spread of COVID-19 among the urban population
This study shows an alarming picture of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of students, with 223 of 324 students (68.8%) having high fear of COVID-19, 93 students (28.7%) having moderate to severe depression, and 167 students (51.5%) having mild to severe generalized anxiety disorder (GAD)
Summary
Communicable diseases such as herpes and legionnaires disease in the 1970s, HIV, Ebola, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), and currently, COVID-19, continue to be devastating for global health, creating increasing pressure on people worldwide. The COVID-19 pandemic has kindled a 21st century “viral scare,” following the “microbe panic” of the 20th century Public health acts such as quarantine, physical distancing, wearing of face masks in public places, and hand hygiene are being executed globally to reduce the spread of infection. To prevent community spread of the infection, as in other countries, the Government of India announced a complete lockdown from March 25, 2020, restricting the movement of the entire population of 1.38 billion people in India; this lockdown was initially intended to last 21 days but was extended to May 31, 2020, with conditional relaxation from May 3, 2020 [2]. This mental health crisis has led to high degrees of fear, anxiety, and depression among college students
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