Assessment of Psychological Distress and Perceived Social Support in the Patients of COVID-Associated Mucormycosis

Abstract

Background/Objective: Coronavirus disease (COVID) 2019-associated mucormycosis is an aggressive fungal infection with an unpredictable outcome and poor prognosis, including a permanent vision loss. It could potentially trigger and amplify mental health problems, and the social support has been known to buffer the negative impact of such a large-scale stressor on mental health. Therefore, the present study aimed to estimate the prevalence and severity of depression, anxiety, and stress with the level of perceived social support and correlation between them in patients with COVID-associated mucormycosis. Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional, observational study conducted on 100 patients of mucormycosis at a tertiary care hospital, and the patients were enrolled by a convenience sampling method on the basis of inclusion and exclusion criteria. Depression, anxiety, and Stress Scale-21 items, and Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support with a self-constructed semi-structured pro-forma were used to collect the required data. Results: The prevalence of depression, anxiety, and stress was found to be 49%, 80%, and 56%, respectively. 8.0% perceived low, 65.0% perceived medium, and 27.0% perceived a high social support. No correlation between depression, anxiety, and stress with the perceived social support was found. Conclusions: Our study highlights the burden of psychological issues in mucormycosis patients. Psychiatric implications can be of paramount importance while dealing with pandemics, and therefore, a routine mental health assessment and timely psychological and social interventions can reduce the adverse impact on mental health outcomes.

Keywords

• depression
• anxiety
• stress
• mucormycosis
• social support