Descriptive Analysis Exploring the Prevalence of Depression and Anxiety as a Direct Impact of COVID-19 on Infected Population

Abstract

Anu Bansal43635, Karan Samdhian43636*, Veena Sharma43637, Ankita Chaudhary43638, Mahendra Prakash Sharma43639 and Manoj Kumar43640

Novel Coronavirus Disease of 2019 or COVID-19 has striked the world again with an even more intense second wave. The association of poor mental health found with COVID-19 has been advocated by various resources. But very few studies have been done on the actual infected population. This research was carried out in the Psychiatry Department, Civil Hospital Sector 6, Panchkula, Haryana to find the prevalence of depression and anxiety among the COVID-19 positive patients. COVID-19 positive patients (n=4120) were telephonically called for mental health screening to look for the manifestation of either depressive behavior or anxiety using Personal Health Questionnaire- 9 (PHQ-9) and General Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) (respectively). The results showed the prevalence of anxiety (1.06%) among the infected population to be higher than current prevalence rate (0.57%) among the general Indian population for Generalized Anxiety Disorder but lower rate of depression (1.35%) as compared to the prevalence rate among the general population (2.7%). The study supports the direct impact of COVID-19 on the mental health of the infected patients.