ABSTRACT
Aim: The COVID-19 pandemic drove the Government of Bangladesh to shut down educational institutions, which had an enormous effect on the psychological health of students. This study aimed to assess the mental health status of Bangladeshi university students during the lockdown period. Subject and methods: Through an online-based questionnaire, information was collected from 509 university students of Bangladesh from June 19, 2020, to June 28, 2020, using convenient sampling. K-means clustering was applied to organize students according to their psychological health score, and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was also conducted to determine the association among the student's activities and their mental health during the pandemic. In addition, these associations were examined through chi-square test and ordinal logistic regression. Results: Students were categorized into four categories where 4.32% had mild, 72.7% had moderate, 12.57% had moderately severe, and 10.41% suffered from severe mental health imbalance. The results showed that having family members affected by the coronavirus, facing insecurity, using social media, and smoking habits increased the mental health imbalances of students; in contrast, being worried about studying, future career, spending more time with family members, and participation in household chores reduced the mental health disturbances of students. On the other hand, the results of the ordinal logistic regression indicated that sleeping time and participation in household chores were preventive factors for students. Conclusion: This study reveals that a large proportion of University students of Bangladesh suffered from mental health disturbances during the lockdown period. Implementing mental health plans and providing job security, improved communication approaches toward family members, not flattening illusive news, and preoccupation in household activities may assist to enhance the mental health status of the university students. The authors believe that this study's findings will be helpful to expedite the rate of attaining the sustainable development goal associated with health status in Bangladesh.
ABSTRACT
Despite the pandemic, the Government of Bangladesh decided to keep the banks open to a limited extent to keep the country's economy afloat. The aim of this study is to assess the psychological impact of COVID-19 among the bankers who are usually more exposed to random people that put them at great risk to be affected. A total of 248 bankers willingly answered our questionnaire consisting of DASS-21 and relevant questions. Cronbach's reliability coefficient for the DASS-21 scale ranges from 0.84 to 0.90 which advocates that DASS-21 scales are highly reliable measures for this study. Results show that among participants, 11.1% were severe to extremely stressed, 10.6% of bankers were severe to extremely anxious, and 12.1% of them were severe to extremely depressed. The study illustrated, among the Bankers whose colleagues were infected (B=2.251, 95% CI: - 1.473, 3.029), who smoking more (B= 1.505, 95% CI: 0.411, 2.599), who wake up from sleep having a bad dreams (B = 1.018, 95% CI: 0.057, 1.979), their fear of getting infected (B = 1.717, 95% CI: 0.392, 3.04), who use public transportation (B = 1.378, 95% CI: 0.430, 2.236), who misbehave with family members (B = 1.033, 95% CI: 0.071, 1.995) and who beaten children (B = 1.210, 95% CI: 0.141, 2.279) were responsible for higher stress, depression and anxiety scores respectively. Whereas, taking nutritious food (B = -0.229, 95% CI: -0.30, 1.763), doing physical exercises (B = -0.325, 95% CI: -1.158, 0.508) reduced depression, stress and anxiety scores. The authors believed that the result of the study will be beneficial for the government and its policymakers to take psychological intervention strategies and to make certain sufficient corporal settlement of the banking professionals.
