Effects of age, education and employment status on mental health during COVID-19 pandemic

The rampant outbreak of COVID-19 has spread at an unconceivable rate affecting more than 215 countries across the world. In India, over 343K confirmed, 180K cases are recovered and over 7.82m are attributable to this deadly viral disease (June, 16, 2020). In the wake of this global health crisis, a country wide lockdown and stringent preventive and precautionary measures have been implemented by the government to contain the spread of this virus. Within this backdrop, the present survey was planned to examine the effect of age, education and occupational status on the data was retrieved from the questionnaire prepared using Google Forms. The correlational design with a total sample size of 489 respondents was utilized. An approximately equal number of male and females located in 70 cities covering 19 states of India volunteered to participate in the survey. The data collected on these participants was subjected to descriptive and inferential statistical analyses. The results revealed that an overwhelmingly large percentage of respondents have understood and have strictly abided to the precautionary and preventive guidelines issued by the government. A large number of respondents have reported that they are facing problems during the lockdown. Respondents were moderately involved in various educational, social and household activates in their residential environment. Half of the respondents reported almost no health problems while thirty and twenty percentage respondents reported psychological health related problems sometimes and almost often respectively. The stepwise regression results revealed that Problems encountered during lockdown, Age, Education, engagement in online games in the residential setting uniquely predicted emotional, social and cognitive components of Mental Health. Implications of the results are discussed.