International Journal of Public Health Science (IJPHS)
Vol 12, No 1: March 2023

Evaluating the effect of COVID-19 pandemic on the psychological health of young adults in India

Alka Sabharwal (University of Delhi)
Babita Goyal (University of Delhi)
Vibha S Chauhan (University of Delhi)
Lalit Mohan Joshi (University of Delhi)
Vaibhav Goyal (Ambedkar University)



Article Info

Publish Date
01 Mar 2023

Abstract

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 p-value is less than 0.001. Males with age<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<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.

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Journal Info

Abbrev

IJPHS

Publisher

Subject

Health Professions

Description

International Journal of Public Health Science (IJPHS) is an interdisciplinary journal that publishes material on all aspects of public health science. This IJPHS provides the ideal platform for the discussion of more sophisticated public health research and practice for authors and readers world ...