"Struggling to Stay Afloat: Assessing the State of Mental Wellbeing during Covid-19"

Abstract

The study aimed at finding consequences of lockdown due to Covid-19 on mental health and daily routine lifestyle among general population in India. Online survey was distributed through different platforms of social media and email to 100 known contacts in March-May 2020. The self-administered questionnaire was developed after reviewing standardised psychological instruments for assessing mental health conditions. The paper discussed the impact of lockdown on mental health of population, including factors like stress, anxiety, depression, mood swings, strategies for coping stressful situations indicating optimism and pessimism. Stepwise Multiple Regression was applied to analyse the scores. The perception of people about lockdown and its impact on their daily lives was also discussed. Based on 90 responses, positively, lockdown provided quality time to spent together with families and negatively it influenced the daily routine and outings. Results also suggest that during lockdown, respondents have been under stressful situations especially financial burden to pay mandatory expenses like house rent, medicines costs and other domestic expenditures, and job insecurity. Relationship between different variables and mental health indicators were known. Stress and anxiety were negatively influenced by educational level, implying that higher the education, lower the stress and anxiety traits. Those higher in educational level were optimistic and tried to find purposes in tough times during lockdown. Relationship between marital status and mood swing was also observed in the study.