Psycho-social factors associated with the nationwide lockdown in India during COVID- 19 pandemic

Nilima Nilima; Siddharth Kaushik; Bhaskar Tiwary; Piyush Kant Pandey

doi:10.1016/j.cegh.2020.06.010

Psycho-social factors associated with the nationwide lockdown in India during COVID- 19 pandemic

Clin Epidemiol Glob Health. 2021 Jan-Mar:9:47-52. doi: 10.1016/j.cegh.2020.06.010. Epub 2020 Jun 30.

Authors

Nilima Nilima¹, Siddharth Kaushik², Bhaskar Tiwary^{3

4}, Piyush Kant Pandey³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biostatistics, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, 110608, India.
² Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi, 110016, India.
³ Indian Institute of Health Management Research, IIHMR University, Jaipur, 302029, India.
⁴ Program Management Unit, SRKPS, Jaipur, 302029, India.

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the psycho-social factors associated with COVID-19 and the nationwide lockdown in India.

Study design: An online survey was conducted from April 11 through April 16, 2020 in 28 states and 8 union territories (UT) of India. The potential participants were recruited using snowball sampling procedure.

Methods: A cross-sectional online survey was conducted among the people of all states in India. A spatial analysis was performed and Moran's I statistic was applied to investigate the overall clustering of locations. Fisher's exact test was used to investigate associations. GeoDa and R console were used to analyze the data. A total of $1316$ responses were received.

Results: Those worried for their family's health were likely to follow the lockdown measures $(p < 0.001) .$ Significant association was observed $(p < 0.001)$ between following the lockdown measures and being satisfied with the government strategy to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. A significant relation was observed between the gender (p = 0.001), job profile $(p < 0.001)$ and physical activity $(p < 0.001)$ were observed to be associated with the psycho-social impact.

Conclusion: Government and public health officials should consider the sentiments of the community while planning strategies relating to the pandemic. The findings of this study will assist the policymakers in emphasizing the psychological well-being of individuals, along with physical health.

Keywords: COVID-19; Corona virus; Psycho-social impact; SARS CoV-2; Spatial; Stress.