Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on mental health among Indians: A posttraumatic stress disorder.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Post Traumatic stress disorder usually occurs after a traumatic event and nowadays we are all facing the pandemic - the COVID-19 which has effected our mental health to a great extent. So this study was taken up to assess the risk of Post traumatic stress disorder symptoms using impact of event scale-revised (IES-R), their main stressors and coping measurements. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A telephonic interview schedule was adopted to fill the online questionnaire among general population of age group 20-55 years covering different states using snow ball technique. RESULTS: depicted 8.2% at risk of post traumatic stress disorder symptoms and 32.5% at risk of suppressed immune system functioning which is presumed to have its effect for the next 10 years. The main stressors of Covid -19 with increased score were worry about economic influences, effect of social media on daily life, lack of social support and poor knowledge. Coping measurements with brief resilient coping scale found 40.5% as low resilient copers who had higher mean scores of IES-R. CONCLUSIONS: This needs to be addressed earlier to bring up preventive strategies to ameliorate by including counselling services in the routine health care services of India.