Abstract
The COVID-19 virus pandemic changed people’s everyday lives because people had to rearrange and adjust their daily activities. This followed the various measures and directions the government undertook to combat the spread of the virus. Everybody was expected to keep social distance, wear a mask and wash their hands every time. These activities were stressful and tiresome and had severe impacts on mental health. COVID-19 affected everybody in the community, and other research has found that the effects were dependent on age, occupation, and physical condition before the virus invasion. COVID-19 disturbance in all face-to-face activities impacted learning activities, company operations, sports activities, and any other business involving masses interactions. This implies that COVID-19 has had mental impacts on various populations, including students, teachers, parents, and health workers. This paper thus will describe and explain the health complications of COVID-19 on parents, students, health workers, and teachers while taking their daily activities and responsibilities.
Introduction
The COVID-19 outbreak impacted all segments of the human population, peaking at the desocialization models applied by various governments as disease containment measures. Socioeconomic changes and sudden fatalities affected communities, families, and individuals in various ways, either directly or indirectly. Some of the issues that exacerbated the anxiety surrounding the global virus spread were the uncertainty about its containment, financial pressures due to job losses, and altered daily routines. Rumors and misinformation worsened psychological distresses that affected an anxious population, possibly increasing mental health disorders or worsening symptoms for those with underlying psychotic conditions. Demographical differences determined the extent to which COVID-19 impacted psychological issues in various populations. That implies the mental health outcomes differed based on occupation, age, and physical health conditions before the pandemic. Therefore, this paper presents an analytical report on how COVID-19 affected students, health workers, and teachers’ emotional, psychological, and social well-being. Drastic environmental changes and social life interferences led to psychological distresses that raised mental illness prevalence among various social groups.
Mental Health Effects on Students
Students affected by the COVID-19 containment measures used different coping mechanisms for adjusting to learning interruptions and sudden environmental changes. According to Mirilović et al. (2022), social distancing affected the students’ active lifestyles, exposing them to boredom and mental health risks such as anxiety, depression, and stress. The mental health impacts were more exacerbated on students with histories of psychotic symptoms, especially those who could not access school-based mental health care providers (Naff et al., 2022). COVID-19 impacts also led to different mental health outcomes for students based on race/ethnicity, family socioeconomic status, and underlying disabilities or psychotic symptoms (Naff et al., 2022). Another key observation on youths, especially the school-going category, is that they showed different coping strategies, which led to diverse mental health outcomes for the population (Naff et al., 2022). Statistical analyses of the group can promote a clarified understanding of the group differences and how the variations affected coping mechanisms.
Statistics
COVID-19 mental health impacts on students depend on the measures available for youths to replicate the learning environment and socialization patterns from home. Mirilović et al. (2022) conducted a cross-sectional online survey on 580 students, 80.3% females, and 68.4% of the population aged between 21 and 30. Most of the students included in the survey were religious and from urban areas (Mirilović et al., 2022). Based on the outcomes of the self-reported mental health survey, Mirilović et al. (2022) found that the students aged between 21 and 30 experienced severe mental health symptoms like depression (64.5%), anxiety (66.8%) and severe stress (66.7%). Gender differences in self-reported mental health outcomes associated with the COVID-19 pandemic showed that more females had severe psychological challenges than males. Mirilović et al. (2022) reported that an average of 81.4% of females reported severe stress, two and half times more than men who reported similar conditions. The implication is that females were more vulnerable to desocialization situations. However, there should be alternative explanations on how substance abuse and social media use factors could have promoted the statistical differences.
Substance Abuse and Social Media Use
Media exposure can worsen mental health impacts on an individual, especially during the COVID-19 period when misinformation and exaggerated fatalities were likely to alter an audience’s emotional stability. Addictive social media use and substance abuse cases rose among youths during the COVID-19 period because the students had too much idle time, which they either spent on digital devices or counterproductive leisure activities (Amram et al., 2021). According to Amram et al. (2021), students with the highest exposure to social media and low knowledge of the ongoing pandemic were 9.9 more likely to abuse substances during the containment period. However, those who experienced addictive social media use and misinformation from local media outlets were 11 times more likely to resort to substance abuse (Amram et al., 2021). Other factors that determined a student’s likelihood to indulge in social media use or substance abuse were the age group (18-39 had the most abusers), gender, race, educational levels, and rurality (Amram et al., 2021). Although mental health challenges are common during disasters, the lengthy containment periods were debilitating to student resilience, where poor coping mechanisms were likely to worsen vulnerabilities.
The COVID-19 pandemic implied student recovery, showing a need for mental health support during online lesson engagements. Naff et al. (2022) observed that there are still inadequate study outcomes on recovery structures for undoing the mental health damages caused during the containment period. However, existing literature clarified that the most affected groups were females and general student populations aged between 18 and 39 (Amram et al., 2021). Learning institutions needed to extend their mental health outreach programs to cater to remote learners since nearly 80% of children with underlying behavioral health needs depend on school-based services (Naff et al., 2022). Schools must collaborate with parents on early detection, and intervention to address residual psychological distresses and traumas that could impact students’ academic or social success. The rationale is that learning institutions can promote integrated mental health recovery processes for learners and teachers using shared treatment models and resources.
Mental Health Effects on Teachers
Psychological distress among teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic resulted from unprecedented changes in teaching situations. According to Ozamis-Exterbarria et al. (2021), teachers felt great uncertainties with the shifts in lesson delivery models, especially since they needed to switch from one practice to another on short notice. Although the professionals underwent numerous challenges in using digital devices to set up online classes, many were unwilling to return to the traditional teaching models once they adopted remote working (Ozamis-Exterbarria et al., 2021). Therefore, psychological symptoms in teachers resulted from anxieties about the paradigm shifts, especially how each lesson model would impact performance (Ozamis-Exterbarria et al., 2021). Cohen-Fraade and Donahue (2021) observed that teachers were among the most vulnerable populations to the COVID-19 effects because most professionals in the occupation have underlying mental health conditions. Most teachers are at risk of developing depression when they join the profession, although the number decreases as they develop coping mechanisms for job demands (Cohen-Fraade & Donahue, 2021). Statistical representations of vulnerabilities within the teaching profession clarified how mental health challenges affected the population.
Statistics
Teachers developed mental health challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic because they balanced work demands with family health concerns. According to Cohen-Fraade and Donahue (2021), a previous study on 339 teachers found that 32% reported depressive symptoms, whereas 19% admitted suicide ideations. According to Cohen-Fraade and Donahue (2021), the mental health rates reported in the study were higher than national averages before the pandemic. Cohen-Fraade and Donahue (2021) conducted an updated study on 455 teachers in their second year of the profession to examine the COVID-19 impacts on their mental health. The quantitative survey approach entailed an administration of a Patient Health Questionnaire 4 (PHQ-4) with questions designed on scalable metrics for testing symptom severity of anxiety and depression. The study outcomes were that 78% of the teachers reported mild to severe anxiety symptoms, whereas 27.8% of the sample reported moderate severity. The statistical implication is that most teachers experienced alarming mental health symptoms of anxiety and depression during the COVID-19 pandemic, regardless of having been in the profession for more than a year.
Demographic differences impacted mental health prevalence among teachers during the pandemic. According to Hossain et al. (2022), depression, anxiety, and stress were more prevalent among older male teachers than their younger female counterparts. Other factors that determined the severity of psychological symptoms in teachers were types of residence, employing institution characteristics, and social media usage (Hossain et al., 2022). Ozamis-Exterbarria et al. (2021) observed that different working conditions impacted the professionals’ response mechanisms to stressors. For instance, teachers were more likely to experience tension, exhaustion, and anxiety when using digital technology devices to connect with students (Ozamis-Exterbarria et al., 2021). Hossain et al. (2022) added that most teachers worked under unfavorable circumstances to reduce their students’ and parents’ mental health burden. Therefore, it is worth noting that social media use, a tool for remote connections with students, worsened the teachers’ mental health impacts during the pandemic.
Social Media Use
Most scholarly literature associate substance abuse with youths and students, implying that they only cover mental health impacts on social media use for the teaching fraternity. Jogezai et al. (2021) observed that the teachers’ attitudes toward using social media during remote learning eras determined their mental health impacts. The rationale is that behavioral intention was a moderating factor in promoting teacher acceptance of the lesson delivery platform (Jogezai et al., 2021). However, knowledge inadequacy on digital devices’ operationality or performance evaluation techniques for remote learning promoted social media use dissatisfaction among many teachers (Jogezai et al., 2021). Hossain et al.’s (2022) study found that the more time teachers spent on electronic media, the more anxious or depressed they became. The finding connects with Jogezai et al.’s (2021) studies that most teachers had a poor experience with most digital interaction platforms, implying that anxiety and depression resulted from the struggles with operating the devices. Although social media use anxiety is a pandemic-related mental health situation, there should be a more critical analysis of the psychological outcomes on teachers when they switch back to the physical learning environments.
Post-Pandemic Recovery
Teachers possibly experience emotional turmoil and psychological distress when rejoining the institution-based learning arrangements. According to García-Álvarez et al. (2021), drastic measures for ending remote learning have negative psychological consequences on teachers, especially due to anticipated uncertainties and schedule disruptions for those who have to cancel vacations. Teachers developed coping mechanisms while working from home by adapting to individualized working environments characterized by resource inadequacy, role confusion, work overload, and little to no employee development programs such as ongoing training (García-Álvarez et al., 2021). The teachers cope with solitary teaching arrangements, which results in fear of contagion and risk perception upon socialization (García-Álvarez et al., 2021). Therefore, psychological interventions for teachers’ re-entry into the physical classroom should encompass improved motivation, stress management training, and work-life balance to prevent burnout (García-Álvarez et al., 2021). School administrators can enact a multidimensional psychological well-being framework for addressing students’ and teachers’ residual mental health symptoms.
Mental Health Effects on Healthcare Workers
Healthcare workers were on the frontline in dealing with increased COVID-19 cases. The professionals were the most at-risk group of all populations, given the highly infectious and fatality rates associated with the coronavirus disease. According to Biber et al. (2022), healthcare workers underwent the most significant stress impacts concerning uncertainties over the future of COVID-19 and the professional’s overall health and well-being while handling affected patients. Therefore, the healthcare worker’s most reported concern was self-dying from the COVID-19 disease (Biber et al., 2022). The frontline hospital staff experienced increased workloads, which execrated stress and anxiety impacts as promoted by the COVID-19 infection fears (Kock et al., 2021). Inadequate personal protective equipment increased the healthcare workers’ vulnerability to infections, where poor knowledge dispatch and resilience measures worsened mental health outcomes among the hospital staff (Kock et al., 2021). Therefore, it is vital to understand the severity of mental health illnesses among healthcare workers based on statistical reports from scholarly research conducted during the pandemic.
Statistics
Mental health development risks were likely from insomnia due to increased workload, anxiety surrounding personal safety, and depression. Khanal et al. (2020) presented a study on 475 healthcare workers in Nepal using a cross-sectional web-based survey for mental health severity during the pandemic. The study outcomes were that 41.9% of the surveyed healthcare workers experienced anxiety symptoms, 37.5%, 33.9% reported insomnia, and 37.5% reported depressive symptoms (Khanal et al., 2020). Healthcare workers with a history of mental health medication showed a higher likelihood of experiencing psychotic symptoms or insomnia (Khanal et al., 2020). Biber et al.’s (2022) cross-sectional survey on healthcare workers during the COVID-19 outbreak revealed that 50% of the study participants experienced job-related anxiety. 22.5% of the surveyed population reported moderate to severe anxiety, implying that healthcare workers were at high risk of developing mental health complications during the pandemic (Biber et al., 2022).
Recovery
Healthcare workers needed organizational interventions to overcome risk perceptions or work-related stressors like exposure and huge workloads that led to mental health instability. According to Kock et al. (2021), healthcare workers who received regular briefings or encountered resilience-building programs developed more robust coping mechanisms for depression, anxiety, or stress. However, Søvold et al. (2021) observed that most healthcare facilities failed to employ evidence-based interventions for promoting mental health resilience and recovery among the affected personnel. Post-pandemic recovery priorities must incorporate the value of practicing self-care techniques for coping, organization-based mental health recovery programs, and healthcare worker empowerment to alleviate job stressors or burnout that could result in psychological breakdowns during service. Healthcare administrators should enact policies that rejuvenate efforts to mitigate workplace emergencies and ensure adequate staffing and personnel mental/physical support.
Conclusion
COVID-19-related mental health impacts on various population groups depend on the prevailing psychological needs and underlying vulnerability factors like medical history of psychological symptoms of mental illness. Furthermore, significant environmental shifts and disruptions in social life caused psychological distress, which increased the prevalence of mental illness across a range of social groupings. Students experienced stress, anxiety, and depression due to restrictions on their socialization patterns and leisure activities. Whereas some students coped through alternative interaction platforms like online classes, others resorted to overindulgence in drugs and social media use which exacerbated mental health disorders. Occupational stress, anxiety, and depression in teachers and healthcare workers increased due to drastic changes in workloads and uncertainties about the future of COVID-19 infections on general population safety. Inadequate coping mechanisms by relevant employers increased vulnerabilities among teachers and healthcare professionals, implying that there should be global public health priorities for dealing with emergencies.
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