Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Dec 30;15(12):e0244530.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0244530. eCollection 2020.

Depression, anxiety symptoms, Insomnia, and coping during the COVID-19 pandemic period among individuals living with disabilities in Ethiopia, 2020

Mogesie Necho  1 , Mengesha Birkie  1 , Habitam Gelaye  1 , Abeba Beyene  1 , Asmare Belete  1 , Mekonnen Tsehay  1
Affiliations

Depression, anxiety symptoms, Insomnia, and coping during the COVID-19 pandemic period among individuals living with disabilities in Ethiopia, 2020

Mogesie Necho et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Background: People with disabilities face multiple barriers that prevent them from accessing care and essential information related to the COVID-19 pandemic that poses additional stress and psychopathology. Therefore, the investigation of psychopathologies during the COVID-19 outbreak and emergency response is critical.

Methods: A cross-sectional survey was implemented from July 15/2020 to July 30/2020. The PHQ-9, GAD-7 scale, insomnia severity index-7, and brief resilient coping scale were administered to participants. The collected data was then entered into Epi-data version 3.1 and exported to SPSS-20 for analysis. Descriptive statistical procedures were employed to describe the various psychopathologies. A binary logistic regression method was used to identify the related factors for the psychopathologies. Furthermore, an odds ratio with its 95%CI was driven to show association strength, and a P-value <0.05 was declared as statistically significant.

Results: A significant proportion of individuals living with disability had psychopathologies; 46.2% for depression symptoms, 48.1% for generalized anxiety disorder symptoms, and 71% for insomnia symptoms. Nearly 45.7% of participants were low resilient copers to their psychopathology. Depression was significantly higher in divorced/widowed/separated (AOR = 3.4, 95% CI: 1.28-8.92, P-value = 0.006), non-educated (AOR = 2.12, 95% CI: 1.12, 5.90, P-value = 0.001), and unemployed (AOR = 2.1, 95% CI: 1.32, 5.11, P-value = 0.005) as well as a daily laborer (AOR = 2.4, 95% CI: 1.20, 4.89, P-value = 0.014) subjects. Generalized anxiety disorder was also significantly higher in young age (<40 years) (AOR = 1.7, 95% CI: 1.32, 2.98, P-value = 0.02), single (AOR = 2.3, 95% CI: 1.24, 5.3, P-value = 0.011), widowed/divorced/separated (AOR = 1.5, 95% CI: 1.12, 2.78, P-value = 0.032), preparatory school completed (AOR = 3.00, 95% CI: 1.59, 5.46, P-value = 0.001), daily laborer (AOR = 2.7, 95% CI: 1.21, 5.23, P-value = 0.003), and unemployed (AOR = 2.5, 95% CI: 1.17, 4.78, P-value = 0.005) participants. Moreover, insomnia was significantly higher in single (AOR = 1.5, 95% CI: 1.12, 3.09, P-value = 0.027), divorced/widowed/separated(AOR = 6.2, 95% CI: 1.08, 11.29, P-value = 0.032), unemployed (AOR = 3.00, 95% CI: 1.22, 7.03, P-value = 0.001), blind (AOR = 2.8, 95% CI: 1.42, 6.35, P-value = 0.001), and deaf (AOR = 10.2, 95% CI: 4.52, 35.33, P-value = 0.002) participants.

Conclusion: Depression, anxiety, and insomnia were highly prevalent among individuals with a disability during the COVID-19 period. Multiple sociodemographic and disability-related factors were associated with this high psychopathology. Attention has to be given by the government and other stakeholders to intervene in psychopathology and its associated factors.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. A figure showing the factors that increase the vulnerability to the mental and psychological impact of COVID-19.
Fig 2
Fig 2. A chart showing the severity levels of depressive symptoms among study participants in the study.
Fig 3
Fig 3. A chart showing the severity levels of anxiety symptoms among study participants in the study.
Fig 4
Fig 4. A chart showing the severity levels of insomnia symptoms among study participants in the study.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Feldmann H, Jones S, Klenk H-D, Schnittler H-J. Ebola virus: from discovery to vaccine. Nature Reviews Immunology. 2003;3(8):677–85. 10.1038/nri1154 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Dawood F, Jain S, Finelli L, Shaw M, Lindstrom S, Garten R, et al. Novel Swine-Origin Influenza A (H1N1) Virus Investigation Team. Emergence of a novel swine-origin influenza A (H1N1) virus in humans. N Engl j Med. 2009;360(25):2605–15. 10.1056/NEJMoa0903810 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Ashour HM, Elkhatib WF, Rahman M, Elshabrawy HA. Insights into the recent 2019 novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) in light of past human coronavirus outbreaks. Pathogens. 2020;9(3):186 10.3390/pathogens9030186 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. House W. Proclamation on declaring a national emergency concerning the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak. White House. 2020.
    1. Chen N, Zhou M, Dong X, Qu J, Gong F, Han Y, et al. Epidemiological and clinical characteristics of 99 cases of 2019 novel coronavirus pneumonia in Wuhan, China: a descriptive study. The Lancet. 2020;395(10223):507–13. 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30211-7 - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types