Psychological Impairment and Coping Strategies During the COVID-19 Pandemic Among Students in Pakistan: A Cross-Sectional Analysis
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Abstract
High levels of stress are expected when crises affect people’s lives. Therefore, this Web-based, cross-sectional study was conducted among university students from Pakistan to investigate the psychological impairment and coping strategies during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Google Forms were used to disseminate the online questionnaire to assess anxiety (Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7), depression (Patient Health Questionnaire-9), and coping strategies (Brief-COPE). A total of 1134 responses (age, 21.7 ± 3.5 y) were included. The frequency of students having moderate-severe anxiety and depression (score ≥ 10) were ≈ 34% and 45%, respectively. The respondents’ aged ≥ 31 y had significantly lower depression score than those ≤ 20 y ( P = 0.047). Males had significantly less anxiety (6.62 ± 5.70 vs 7.84 ± 5.60; P = 0.001) and depression (8.73 ± 6.84 vs 9.71 ± 7.06; P = 0.031) scores. Those having family members, friends, or acquaintances infected with disease had significantly higher anxiety scores (8.89 ± 5.74 vs 7.09 ± 5.56; P < 0.001). Regarding coping strategies, the majority of respondents were found to have adopted religious/spiritual coping (6.45 ± 1.68) followed by acceptance (5.58 ± 1.65), self-distraction (4.97 ± 1.61), and active coping (4.81 ± 1.57). In conclusion, COVID-19 caused significant impairment on mental health of the students. The most frequent coping strategies adopted by students were religious/spiritual and acceptance coping. During epidemics, mental health of students should not be neglected.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2020.05.21.20108647: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement IRB: Ethical consideration: Protocol of the present study was reviewed and approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the Department of Pharmacy Practice, Faculty of Pharmacy, The University of Lahore.
Consent: An informed consent was obtained from every study participant. 2.3.Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable Additionally, the questionnaire was piloted among ten university students (age 20-30 years; 4 males and 6 females). Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources 2.5 Statistical analysis: Responses stored in the web-based database (The Google Drive) of the principal … SciScore for 10.1101/2020.05.21.20108647: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement IRB: Ethical consideration: Protocol of the present study was reviewed and approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the Department of Pharmacy Practice, Faculty of Pharmacy, The University of Lahore.
Consent: An informed consent was obtained from every study participant. 2.3.Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable Additionally, the questionnaire was piloted among ten university students (age 20-30 years; 4 males and 6 females). Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources 2.5 Statistical analysis: Responses stored in the web-based database (The Google Drive) of the principal investigator were transferred to Microsoft Excel sheet. Microsoft Excelsuggested: (Microsoft Excel, RRID:SCR_016137)After appropriate coding and data cleaning, the data were imported into the SPSS version 22 for the analysis. SPSSsuggested: (SPSS, RRID:SCR_002865)Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:This study had some limitations. Firstly, this study was conducted among the students of four higher education institutions. Secondly, as this was a web-based survey the problem of selective participation and coverage error might be present. Thirdly, we used a self-administered questionnaire so disadvantages associated with self-report data (introspective ability, response bias, sampling bias) could exist. Lastly, the clinical assessment for the diagnosis of depression and anxiety disorders as per criteria of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V) was not done. However, our findings provide valuable insight about the psychological impact of COVID-19, at its peak, on Pakistani university students.
Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.
Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.
Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.
Results from rtransparent:- Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- No protocol registration statement was detected.
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