Psycho-social impact of pandemic among COVID-19 survivors

Abstract

Background: The clobber of COVID-19 pandemic has been an unprecedented public health challenge that disrupted psycho-social resilience of the society projecting an ultimatum since SARS outbreak 2003. Considering the trend, it was decided to ascertain the psyche and mind-set of 72 COVID survivors (actual patients) those came in contact with the scholar during the pandemic in 2020-21 in Kolkata, India. Methods: A descriptive study employing convenient sampling, conducted by data collection through questionnaire that included socio-demographic and psycho-social data during Aug-Sep 2022. Psycho-social data included perception on health risk, social support, psychological reserve and psychological distress on 5-point Likert scale and was analyzed through suitable descriptive statistics. Result: Study found the basic traits of survivors like age, sex, employment, job-loss, co-morbidity and occurrence pattern of COVID-19 similar to other documented studies in India. The subjects displayed high health risk perception, satisfaction in Govt. regulation and other social services including food/provisions, need for ever-sought-after social support (57-63%), high psychological distress (82-88%) in the background strong psychological reserve (47-62%) indicating considerable agony during hard trying time. Conclusion: It is recommended that public health administration must conduct mental health audits during epidemic outbreaks for efficient management of community distress and provide online psycho-therapy in addition to traditional support.