Covid fear affecting mental health in second wave too

Rajkot: The demons in the head can be as dangerous as the real ones. That’s what a survey, conducted to gauge the impact of Covid’s second wave on mental health of the society, has revealed.
The survey was carried out by the psychology department of Saurashtra University (SU) recently.
According to the varsity’s psychologists, a negative mindset, developed due to the fear of Covid, also leads to physical sickness among some people.
Yogesh Jogsan, head of psychology department of SU, and Dhara Doshi, assistant professor, carried out survey of 1,710 people in Rajkot and surrounding area. “In our survey 24.30% people admitted that the status, pictures and videos on social media highlighting the pandemic had created imaginary fear in them,” Jogsan said.
In all 1,026 women and 684 men participated in the survey. Many participants among these said that they suffered from panic attacks after reading or watching the news about shortage of beds, medicine and oxygen.
The panic attacks resulted in many respondents developing imaginary coronavirus symptoms and breathing problems.
“As many as 19.10% of respondents said that they started fearing about what would happen to them if they get infected after hearing about medical infrastructure crumbling during the second wave of the pandemic.”
Around 10% of the respondents revealed that they panicked after hearing ambulance sirens. Many spent sleepless nights after being disturbed by the sound of sirens. Also, people feared for their fate after the demise of Covid-infected relatives or friends.
“The conclusion of this survey is that there are many people suffering from mental illness not due to Covid but because of its fear. An imaginary illness develops during a pandemic which has the same symptoms like physical illness but the cause of it is not the body but the mind,” Jogsan added.