Generalized anxiety disorder among Bangladeshi university students during COVID-19 pandemic: gender specific findings from a cross-sectional study.

Autor: Muzaffar R; Department of Public Health, School of Health & Life Sciences, North South University, Dhaka, Bangladesh., Koly KN; International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b), Dhaka, Bangladesh., Choudhury S; National Institute of Preventive and Social Medicine (NIPSOM), Dhaka, Bangladesh., Biswas MAAJ; Department of Statistics, University of Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh., Kader SB; University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada., Abdullah R; Department of Public Health, School of Health & Life Sciences, North South University, Dhaka, Bangladesh., Kawser U; Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology, University of Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh., Hasan MT; Department of Public Health, State University of Bangladesh, Dhaka, Bangladesh.; Jeeon Bangladesh Ltd., Dhaka, Bangladesh.; Department of Primary Care and Mental Health, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK., Williams D; London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK., Chowdhury AB; Department of Public Health, School of Health & Life Sciences, North South University, Dhaka, Bangladesh., Ahmed HU; National Institute of Mental Health, Bangladesh, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Discover mental health [Discov Ment Health] 2022; Vol. 2 (1), pp. 3. Date of Electronic Publication: 2022 Feb 08.
DOI: 10.1007/s44192-022-00005-2
Abstrakt: In the current COVID-19 pandemic there are reports of deteriorating psychological conditions among university students in lower-middle-income countries (LMICs), but very little is known about the gender differences in the mental health conditions on this population. This study aims to assess generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) among university students using a gender lens during the COVID-19 pandemic. A cross-sectional study was conducted using web-based Google forms between May 2020 and August 2020 among 605 current students of two universities in Bangladesh. Within the total 605 study participants, 59.5% (360) were female. The prevalence of mild to severe anxiety disorder was 61.8% among females and 38.2% among males. In the multivariable logistic regression analysis, females were 2.21 times more likely to have anxiety compared to males [AOR: 2.21; CI 95% (1.28-53.70); p-value: 0.004] and participants' age was negatively associated with increased levels of anxiety (AOR = 0.17; 95% CI = 0.05-0.57; p  = 0.001). In addition, participants who were worried about academic delays were more anxious than those who were not worried about it (AOR: 2.82; 95% CI 1.50-5.31, p  = 0.001). These findings of this study will add value to the existing limited evidence and strongly advocate in designing gender-specific, low-intensity interventions to ensure comprehensive mental health services for the young adult population of Bangladesh.
Competing Interests: Competing interestsThe authors declare no conflict of interest.
(© The Author(s) 2022.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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