Data analysis of Global Perceived Stress Scores during Covid-19

ABSTRACT

The Covid-19 Pandemic that broke out in late December 2019 has had a widespread negative effect on the mental health of people around the world. This work aims to elicit features that had a major influence on mental health during the pandemic to better understand preventive measures and remedial actions that can be taken to help individuals in need. Along with factors such as demographic age, gender, marital status, and employment status, additional information such as the effect of media used as a source of information, coping methods, trust in the country's government, and healthcare organizations was analyzed to find their correlation (if any) to the perceived stress of the individual. Machine Learning techniques such as XGBoost, AdaBoost, Decision Trees, Ordinal regression, k-Nearest Neighbors, Lasso and Ridge regression were used to arrive at a relationship between the perceived stress scores and the features considered. On interpreting results from the different models, we conclude that the main factor influencing stress scores was loneliness followed by features indicating trust in government, compliance with Covid-19 preventive measures and concerns regarding the pandemic. © 2022 IEEE.