Psychosocial factors associated with mental health and quality of life during the COVID-19 pandemic among low-income urban dwellers in Peninsular Malaysia
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Abstract
Mental well-being among low-income urban populations is arguably challenged more than any other population amid the COVID-19 pandemic. This study investigates factors associated with depression and anxiety symptoms and quality of life among Malaysia’s multi-ethnic urban lower-income communities.
Methods
This is a community-based house-to-house survey conducted from September to November 2020 at the Petaling district in Selangor, Malaysia. Five hundred and four households were identified using random sampling, and heads of eligible households were recruited. Inclusion criteria were age ≥18 years with a monthly household income ≤RM6960 (estimated $1600) without acute psychiatric illness. The PHQ-9, GAD-7 and EQ-5D were used for depression, anxiety, and quality of life, respectively. Multivariable logistic regression was performed for the final analysis.
Results
A total of 432 (85.7%) respondents with a mean age of 43.1 years completed the survey. Mild to severe depression was detected in 29.6%, mild to severe anxiety in 14.7%, and problematic quality of life in 27.8% of respondents. Factors associated with mild to severe depression were younger age, chronic health conditions, past stressful events, lack of communication gadgets and lack of assets or commercial property. While respiratory diseases, marital status, workplace issues, financial constraints, absence of investments, substance use and lack of rental income were associated with mild to severe anxiety. Attributing poverty to structural issues, help-seeking from professionals, and self-stigma were barriers, while resiliency facilitated good psychological health. Problematic quality of life was associated with depression, older age, unemployment, cash shortage, hypertension, diabetes, stressful life events and low health literacy.
Conclusions
A high proportion of the sampled urban poor population reported mild to severe anxiety and depression symptoms. The psychosocial determinants should inform policymakers and shape future work within this underserved population.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2022.02.21.22271310: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Ethics IRB: This study received ethical approval from the University of Malaya Research Ethics Committee (UMREC Non-Medical ref: UM.TNC2/UMREC – 811).
Consent: Written consent was obtained from each eligible respondent prior to the enrolment.Sex as a biological variable not detected. Randomization A simple random sampling was done based on the household list provided by the research committee from the Statistics Department. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis The sample size was estimated using Open Epi software with a significance level of 0.05 and an alpha value of 0.2. Cell Line Authentication Authentication: The Malay SSOSH has been validated among the low-income group in Malaysia with an acceptable … SciScore for 10.1101/2022.02.21.22271310: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Ethics IRB: This study received ethical approval from the University of Malaya Research Ethics Committee (UMREC Non-Medical ref: UM.TNC2/UMREC – 811).
Consent: Written consent was obtained from each eligible respondent prior to the enrolment.Sex as a biological variable not detected. Randomization A simple random sampling was done based on the household list provided by the research committee from the Statistics Department. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis The sample size was estimated using Open Epi software with a significance level of 0.05 and an alpha value of 0.2. Cell Line Authentication Authentication: The Malay SSOSH has been validated among the low-income group in Malaysia with an acceptable internal consistency of Cronbach’s alpha = 0.667 (26). Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
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: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.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.
Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.
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