Abstract

SUMMARY REPORT ON PROJECT WORK OF SURVEY ON EFFECT OF COVID PANDEMIC ON MENTAL HEALTH OF PEOPLE

P. Kokate*, N. Lokhande, N. Pushpakar, D. Rathod, P. Virkar, V. Sharma and Dr. D. Bharti*

ABSTRACT

The outbreak of coronavirus diseases (COVID-19) has been subsequently changed the life and living of people across the world, especially after the declaration of a global pandemic by the World Health Organization in the second week of March 2020. Till the 7th of June 2020, around 6.91 million people were infected with the COVID-19, with a confirmed fatality of another 0.4 million worldwide. Hence, many countries implemented a range of anti-epidemic measures, such as restricting travel for foreign nationals, closing down public spaces, and shutting down the entire transit system, to reduce the transmission of the highly contagious infections from human-to-human. As per the detection of first COVID-19 case on January 27, 2020, in kerala, India. Many other countries like India put the lockdown strategy into effect on March 24, 2020, to ensure ‘social distance’ through ‘home quarantine’ to reduce the spread of virus among its population, since a precise treatment or vaccine for the infected and people at risk are yet to achieved by the global health community. However, all education institutions were closed initially from March 16 to March 31, 2020 across the country and later extended to the mid of June 2020 in phases. This unprecedented experience of ‘home quarantine’ under lockdown with the uncertainty of academic and professional career has multifaceted impacts on the mental health of students. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is creating a psycho-emotional chaotic situation as countries have been reporting a sharp rise of mental health problems, including anxiety, depression, stress, sleep disorder as well as fear, among its citizens, that eventually increased the substance use and sometimes suicidal behavior. Evidence from pandemics shows that many of the individuals who contracted the disease experienced fear, anxiety, emotional distress, and post-trauma stress symptoms. So this type of a study was expected to measure the psychological impacts of an unpredictable emergency on students, as well as to formulate and execute effective interventions and strategies to mitigate the mental health of people at large scale. This study was designed to address the mental health of people and to create awareness regarding good mental health.

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