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
. 2021 Feb;10(2):978-984.
doi: 10.4103/jfmpc.jfmpc_1385_20. Epub 2021 Feb 27.

A study on the anxiety level and stress during Covid19 lockdown among the general population of West Bengal, India- A must know for primary care physicians

Subhrojyoti Bhowmick  1 , Saksham Parolia  2 , Shubham Jana  3 , Debarati Kundu  4 , Digbijoy Choudhury  5 , Nina Das  6 , Krishnanghsu Ray  7 , Sujit KarPurkaysatha  8
Affiliations

A study on the anxiety level and stress during Covid19 lockdown among the general population of West Bengal, India- A must know for primary care physicians

Subhrojyoti Bhowmick et al. J Family Med Prim Care. 2021 Feb.

Abstract

Background: Covid19 pandemic has resulted in drastic changes in human lives across the globe in the form of lockdown and an uncertain future. Information regarding the COVID-19-related anxiety and well-being among the public in India is very limited, especially from the state of West Bengal. We conducted this e-survey among the general population of West Bengal to assess the anxiety levels and the well-being status during lockdown. This information would be helpful to guide family physicians to screen patients for anxiety from the primary care level.

Aims: The main aim of this questionnaire based study was to assess the levels of anxiety and well-being status among the public including the frontline workers in West Bengal, India.

Materials and methods: A prospective study was conducted with a validated e-questionnaire after Institutional Ethics committee approval, from 18th April, 2020 to 3rd May, 2020. The questionnaire had 12 questions which included the Generalized Anxiety disorder (GAD)-7 scale and the WHO-5 scale (5 question-items) to assess the well-being of the participants. The survey link was distributed through the social networking sites of WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter and e-mails within West Bengal. Microsoft Excel (version 2016) was used to analyse the data.

Results: A total of 355 responses were received 15.49% responders were observed to have anxiety and 37.74% participants had low well-being scores. Majority of healthcare workers (89.47%) were seen to have anxiety and a significant (52.03%) had a low well-being status.

Conclusions: We report the presence of anxiety and low well-being among the general population of West Bengal. It is important to understand the current psychological status of the public for the family physicians as many would visit them with vague symptoms. There is a dire need to screen all patients including front line workers visiting primary care physicians for mental health to ensure better clinical outcome.

Keywords: Anxiety; COVID-19; India; Well-being; West Bengal; health care workers.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

There are no conflicts of interest.

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Statement On The Second Meeting Of The International Health Regulations (2005) Emergency Committee Regarding The Outbreak Of Novel Coronavirus (2019-Ncov). [Internet] World Health Organisation; 2020. [Last accessed on 2020 Jul 07]. Available from: https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/30-01-2020-statement-onthe-second-m...
    1. World Health Organization. [Internet]. Updated 2020 Jun 05. [Last accessed on 2020 Jun 05]. Available from: https://covid19.who.int/
    1. Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update: Daily Roundup March 30, 2020. [Internet] U.S. Food and Drug Administration; [Last accessed on 2020 Jun 01]. Updated 2020 Mar 30. Available from: https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavirus-covid-19... .
    1. MoHFW. Government of India; 2020. Ministry of Health and Family Welfare: Home Page. [Internet] [Last accessed on 2020 May 05]. Available from : https://www.mohfw.gov.in/pdf/RevisedNationalClinicalManagementGuidelinef... .
    1. Samarathunga W, Weerathunga P. Advent of economic paradigm shift and 5G during the post-COVID19 revival phase. Preprints. 2020 2020050245. doi: 10.20944/preprints202005.0245.v1.

LinkOut - more resources