Evaluation of Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scores in Patients with Covid- 19: A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic is a traumatic event with a global impact, predicted to increase depression, anxiety, substance use, sadness, and loneliness. This study was conducted to evaluate the scale of depression, anxiety, and stress among patients infected with the COVID-19 virus. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted between April 2019 and April 2022. According to the conditions of the study space, available sampling was selected. In addition to demographic characteristics, a questionnaire related to stress, anxiety, and depression (DASS-21) was used to collect data. Then, the collected data were entered into SPSS software for analysis, and Pearson's correlation was used to check the relationship between the variables, with the significance level (P-value) reported.| Results: Out of a total of 714 participants, 26.1% had higher scores in depression, 37.5% in anxiety, and 15.7% in stress. In this way, two-thirds of the studied population on the depression and anxiety scale and almost half of the studied population on the stress scale experienced degrees of these disorders from mild to very severe during the period of COVID-19 infection. The scores of each subcategory of depression, anxiety, and stress are significantly correlated with each other, which shows that people who have a higher score in one subcategory also have a higher score in two subcategories. Conclusion: It seems that COVID-19 has an obvious effect on the mental health of people. Thus, more policies and attention are needed in this field to manage the disease.

Keywords

• Depression
• Anxiety
• Stress
• Covid-19