A Cross-Sectional Study to Estimate the Severity of Anxiety in Professionals Remotely Working from Home during COVID-19 Pandemic

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on public mental health besides playing havoc with one's physical health. The study aims to fill the existing gap in the research concerning the impact of COVID-19 on professionals working from homes (WFH). Aims: To estimate the severity of anxiety in WFH Professionals during COVID-19 and to assess its impact on their financial, personal and professional lives. Material and Methods: It was an online questionnaire designed to profile remotely working professionals to assess the anxiety levels using Becks anxiety inventory (BAI) scale and the impact of Covid-19 on the personal, professional and financial status on 255 qualified respondents (123 women & 135 men). Statistical analysis: Chi-square test was done by using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20 software. P-value P<0.05 was considered significant. Results: WFH during the COVID-19 restrictions increased moderate to severe anxiety levels (32.09%) with females (51.02%) suffering at higher rates than their male counterparts (15.09%). In these remotely working women, being married (64%) staying in a joint family (90.9%), having children (90.9%) heightened this anxiety. Results suggest that remotely working has adversely impacted their personal lives with females suffering at higher levels than men. It affected their financial lives adversely with females suffering at higher rates. Professional situation got severely impacted by this WFH however;women and men were similarly affected. Conclusion: Worsening anxiety levels and adverse impact on the personal, financial and professional lives in these remotely working Professionals especially women necessitates finding solutions by employers, psychologists and psychiatrists to alleviate this indirect impact of Covid 19.

Application of IoT in Current Pandemic of COVID-19

As we know that Internet, a rebellion innovation has transformed everything, Internet of Things has made a hope for excellent future of Internet with Machine-Machine (M2M) type of communication. This review paper has also shown that it is possible and affordable to construct these smart systems based on Internet of Things (IoT). IoT delivers exceptional advancement in the healthcare domain. This paper explores the roles of IoT that revolutionize the healthcare domain by providing enormous healthcare benefits to the mankind by offering affordable and practical healthcare solutions. The main focus of this paper is to discuss the role of IoT in smart hospitals and its significance to deal with pandemics is also highlighted. For serving the community-specific needs during spread of pandemic, various smart devices can be utilized that can provide varied functionalities including proper monitoring of high-risk patients, tracking their bio-metric measurements and capturing real-time data. We have also studied various blueprints which can sense unforeseen happenings using numerous sensors and reveal the facts accumulated on LED display. Observational outcomes have shown good agreement with the hypothetical statements. © 2021 Institute of Physics Publishing. All rights reserved.