Abstract

Background: shifting of the school classes to online format owing to social distancing
norms led to amplification of academic stress, independent learning pressure, dropouts,
everyday life abandonment, less study chance made researchers focus on assessing the
impact of coronavirus on the mental condition of the students. This requires prompt
intervention as stress can further increase in subjects adopting conventional coping
strategies and in subjects with pre-existing stressors.
Aim: The present study was conducted to assess stress, anxiety, and depression in subjects
at a defined geographical area to assess psychological needs in subjects dealing with
causal factors and the pandemic.
Methods: In 156 subjects, DASS 21 scale was used having 21 questionnaires that were
answered by the subjects themselves and were concerned about stress, anxiety, and
depression. The responses were recorded on a scale of 0 to 4 where 0 meant little time/none
and 3 meant most of the time. The responses were recorded based on symptoms severity in
the last week before answering the questionnaire. The interpretation of the DASS 21 scale
was divided into categories of normal, mild, moderate, severe, or very severe. The collected
data were subjected to statistical evaluation.
Results: For gender, only anxiety was statistically significant (p=0.01) which was higher in
females with the value of 1.72±0.993 compared to males with the value of 1.47±0.881. For
the age anxiety levels were significantly higher in subjects of age ≤ 20 years with 1.76±1.01
compared to ≥ 21 years with the value of 1.52±0.883 (p=0.02). For familial history also
significantly correlated to anxiety with p=0.004, whereas for depression and stress the pvalues
were 0.758 and 0.238 respectively and were non-significant. For family history, it
was significantly related to anxiety with a p-value of 0.12, whereas, it was non-significantly
related to depression and stress with respective p-values of 0.753 and 0.297. The
socioeconomic status was also significantly associated with anxiety with the low
socioeconomic group having a strong association having a p-value of 0.25.
Conclusion: The present study concludes that the depression, anxiety, and stress in
students during COVID-19 was seen ranging from mild to severe levels, whereas, majority
European Journal of Molecular & Clinical Medicine
ISSN 2515-8260 Volume 08, Issue 04, 2021
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of the students showed normal levels of DASS. Also, positive family history of COVID-19
and family income was associated with increased depression, anxiety, and stress in the
students.