Mental Wellbeing during the Lockdown Period following the COVID-19 Pandemic in Nepal: A Descriptive Cross-sectional Study

Abstract

Introduction: COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly affected all aspects of society, including mental and physical health. Often missed is the fact that the pandemic is occurring against the backdrop of a very high prevalence of mental health issues. Protecting the mental health of people and healthcare workers is important for long-term positive health outcomes and proper control of the outbreak.
 Methods: This is a descriptive cross-sectional, questionnaire-based, online survey by convenience sampling. Ethical approval was obtained from the institutional review committee of Nepal Health Research Council (reference no. 2467). Open access, pre-validated questionnaires were used. Participants with significantly poor Mental wellbeing were identified using the WHO well-being index threshold score. Descriptive statistical analysis was carried out.
 Results: Five hundred and fifty-six participants were included in the analysis. Forty percent of the participants reported a WHO well-being index score of below 13, indicative of poor mental wellbeing and a need for further assessment for depression. Poor Mental wellbeing was more prevalent among participants less than 30 years of age, female gender, never married, diagnosed mental disorder, living alone and those using informal sources for COVID-19 related information. More participants with lower sleep quality score and higher perceived stress score reported poor Mental wellbeing.
 Conclusions: Combating this challenge requires integration across disciplines. One potential part of the solution is psychological intervention teams. An emerging positive connotation to the pandemic is that it needs to be harnessed as a tool for improving health facilities, community participation, and fighting misinformation.

Telepsychiatry during the second wave of COVID-19 in Nepal: Current initiatives, prospects, and challenges

“…Similarly, the functioning of ‘Satellite Clinic’ whereby psychiatrists provide services to deprived areas on an out-patient basis, monthly/bimonthly in order to minimize the treatment gap in mental care, has also been affected by this pandemic ( Sharma, et al, 2020 ). During the first wave of the pandemic, a study reported 40 % of the participants to have poor mental wellbeing as per WHO well-being index ( Shrestha et al, 2020 ). Studies reported increased prevalence of mental health outcomes including anxiety, stress, depression and psychological distress such as restlessness, fearfulness, worry and sadness ( Gautam et al, 2020 ; Poudel and Subedi, 2020 ).…”

Pre-hospital, in-hospital and post-hospital factors associated with sleep quality among COVID-19 survivors 6 months after hospital discharge: cross-sectional survey in five cities in China

“…22 The single-item SQS uses more suitable measurement characteristics to assess sleep quality compared with lengthier sleep questionnaires such as the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and the Morning Questionnaire-insomnia. 22 This instrument has been demonstrated to be a reliable and valid measure that does not significantly increase the burden on respondents and has been used in a number of published studies, [23][24][25][26][27] including studies conducted in China. 24 In addition, participants were asked to compare their current sleep quality with that in the time before COVID-19 (response categories: 1 = got worse, 2 = no change, 3 = got better).…”

Self-Perceived Stress and Coping Strategies during COVID-19 Pandemic among the Students of Kathmandu Metropolitan City

“…Previous studies have shown that both tools have high validity and reliability. These tools have also been used in previous studies conducted in Nepal [30,31]. For quality control, one of the researchers was self-involved in data collection and another one was supervised.…”