Background- Uncertainties are prevailing duringunprecedented COVID-19 outbreak time affecting higher studies/careers of undergraduate and graduate students. Aims- To identify symptoms of psychological problems existing in young adults in general and also, the effect of forced quarantine due to COVID-19lockdowns on their psychological behaviour. Setting and Design- A cross-sectional study through an online survey using 17+extended English version of the Strength and Difficulties questionnaire (SDQ) to measure effect of lock down / forced quarantine on psychological behaviour of young adults in India at the time of pandemic. Methods and Material- Survey was carried in the months of May-June 2020 among college/university students and 1020 responses were obtained. Absolute and relative frequency distributions are computed.Scores of the five SDQ scales, difficulty scores and impact score are compared gender wise. Statistical analysis-The effects of gender and chronicity are tested using permutation test. Chi square tests of goodness of fit and independent attributes are applied. Results and Conclusions- The 16.93%, 14.38 %,3.94 %,16.07 % of respondentsare under significant risk categories for Emotional, Conduct, Hyperactivity, and Peer problem scalesrespectively.Except for Prosocial scale, there is no effect of gender on other scales as the p value is greater than 0.05. There is significant difference in observed numbers under all categories from the expected SDQ standards on 877 distressed respondents as p value < 0.001. Irrespective of gender, the prolonged lockdown due to COVID-19 is affecting psychological behaviour of young adults.

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COVID-19 pandemic has affected the mental health of individuals, particularly young adults. Using the ‘strength and difficulty questionnaire 17⁺ extended version’, we studied the severity of psychological problems and the resultant distress in young adults; the relationship between the ‘difficulty’ and ‘impact’ scores; and the effect of distress in terms of a number of day-to-day activities affected during a pandemic. Data was collected from 743 college/university students (December 2020-February 2021) in India. Descriptive, relative frequencies, and nonparametric tests are applied here. Females were facing more psychological behavioral problems as compared to males as the<em> </em>p-value is less than 0.001. Males with age&lt;20 years were least affected by COVID-19. Day-to-day activities are affected by almost 45% of young adults because of distress. ‘difficulty’ and ‘impact’ severity bands were significantly different from the previous standard proportions. No significant association was there between ‘difficulty’ and ‘impact’ scores (p-value&lt;0.001). 53% of those contracting COVID-19 had severe distress as against 45% of those who did not. 46% of the respondents were in the ‘abnormal’ category and 59 out of 327 were facing ’a great deal’ problems in more than two areas.