Increase in Stress and Post-Traumatic Stress During 6 Month Quarantine in Various Demographics

Abstract

Due to the Coronavirus, people have quarantined for periods of at least six months all over the world. In the United States, there have been over six hundred thousand Coronavirus deaths and over 33 million cases of COVID-19 as of May 2021(World O Meter 2021). When the pandemic first struck, 23 million people in the U. S. lost their jobs. Today's unemployment rate is higher than it was during the Great Depression, which lasted from the 1920s to the late 1930s. People are stressed about COVID, according to John Hopkins (Maguire 2020), and they encourage people to find coping mechanisms. When a person is stressed, they experience physical or emotional tension (MedlinePlus 2020). Since coping can have a detrimental effect on the immune system, coping in necessary (Maguire 2020). This study sought to determine whether people aged 18 and up experienced a rise in stress levels during a 6-month quarantine period. Then, based on the Impact of Event Scale - Revised (IES-R) score, this study would determine which coping mechanism, if any, is most successful in alleviating quarantine-induced stress. It was found that there was a significant increase in stress levels after a six-month quarantine period with a confidence level of 95% and a p-value of 0.00000031. The data also showed that there was not a significant difference in the stress levels between varying coping mechanisms with a p-value of 0.23. It is recommended to use a coping mechanism, all coping mechanisms are effective when matched properly to each individual.