The Impact of COVID-19 on Stess, Anxiety, and Depression

How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected the mental health of people in general? The novel coronavirus can produce a wide array of physical symptoms including fever, chills, cough, sore throat, nausea and vomiting, myalgia, and diarrhea. Severe cases can lead to acute respiratory syndrome, heart and respiratory failure, and sometimes death.

Did the COVID-19 pandemic hurt our psychological well-being?

We now know that the pandemic has also produced a broad range of psychological outcomes at the individual, community, national, and international levels. At the individual level, people are more likely to fear getting sick or dying in addition to feeling helpless or stigmatized by the disease. Early identification in the early stages of a psychological crisis helps to ensure a more efficacious treatment. This impact of fear, anxiety and depression due to the pandemic is found in health care workers and the general public.

While not every person experiences a psychological crisis, the impact stretches across an entire society. Recent evidence shows that individuals who are kept in quarantine and isolation have much higher levels of anxiety, stress, anger, and confusion. These studies are showing symptoms of mental trauma like depression, emotional distress, irritability, mood swings, stress, ADHD, insomnia, anger, and post-traumatic stress. This can be compounded by frequent exposure to media and social media.

Still, accurate measurement of the impact of the psychological and emotional consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic is difficult. Studies coming from China, which was the first country severely impacted by the coronavirus, suggest the fear of the unknown nature of the virus leads to mental disorders.

Due to the pathogenicity of the virus, the rate of spread, the resulting high mortality rate, COVID-19 may negatively impact the mental health of individuals, infected patients, health care workers, families, children, students, and patients with mental illness.