**3.1 Participants**

We used a snowball sampling approach to distribute questionnaire online. The questionnaire was shared on different platforms, when a participant completed it, they forwarded it to their group of friends to expand the size. Out of total 250 respondents, 138 are males that is 55.2% and 112 are females that is 44.8%. Based on the distribution of age, majority of respondents belonged to the age group of 25–44

*COVID-19 in India: Problems, Challenges and Strategies (Psychological Aspects) DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.100111*

(50.8%). Whereas 34.8% of the respondents belonged to the age group of 18– 24 years and 9.6% were in the age group of 45–above years and 4.8% of the respondents were of the age group of 1–17 years of age (**Table 1**).

Occupation of the respondents has been assessed using 7 categories including medical/security/defense (4.4%), full time employed (31.6%), part time employed (2.8%), unemployed (2.8%), homemaker (0.8%) and majority of respondents lie in category student (41.6%) and others (16%).

The work from home permission of the respondents indicates that most of the respondents as (47.2%) lies in yes and (28.8%) lies in the category of no and there were 8% respondents who were partially allowed to work from home while 16% falls in category of not applicable.

#### **3.2 Awareness**

People awareness plays an instrumental role in determining their behavior. This section describes the effectiveness of the awareness for people in the pandemic. The people awareness has been measured with indicators (0 to 4) which include the level of awareness as (0) do not know anything, (1) know very less things, (2) know few things, (3) know many things, (4) know everything (**Table 2**).

The above table describes the study respondents awareness about COVID-19 divided in age groups which are 1–17, 18–24, 25–44 and 44–above. In category Age


#### **Table 1.**

*Descriptive profile of the respondents.*


#### **Table 2.**

*Awareness about COVID-19 in respondents.*

group (4–17) maximum results come in favor of 2, 3, 4, In age group (18–24) and (25–44) maximum results come in favor of 3 while in age group (44–above) maximum respondents lie in category of 4. This implies that most of the people were aware about the pandemic situation (**Figure 2**).

#### **3.3 Attitude**

In age group of 18–24 and 25–44 approximately 35% people were worried more about their health while 10.5% are worried every time with 33% of 18–24 and 28% of 25–44 do not worry at all (**Figure 3**).

In age group of 18–24 there are 32% people worrying about nation or world everytime and in 25–44 age group there 21% people worrying about nation or world everytime. While 34% of 18–24 years and 37% of 25–44 years worrying most of the time. While only 8% and 11% of 18–24 and 25–44 resp. do not worry at all (**Figure 4**).

### *COVID-19 in India: Problems, Challenges and Strategies (Psychological Aspects) DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.100111*

#### **Figure 2.**

#### **Figure 3.**

#### **Figure 4.**

*Percentage of different age group people change in their behavior life speaking slowly or moving around usually during pandemic.*

#### **3.4 Behavior**

According to Survey, 28% of teenagers, 9% of 18–24 age group people, 8% of 25–44 age group people and 10% of 44+ have been every time noticed moving or

#### *Fighting the COVID-19 Pandemic*

#### **Figure 5.**

*Percentage of different age group people taking care of mental health by caring others, eating well, accepting situation, taking about their feelings etc. during pandemic.*

speaking slowly. Approx 14% and 28% of children are mostly and many times seen moving slowly while 28% are not at all effected. In case of 18–24 age group 16% and 24% have been noticed mostly and many times moving slowly than usual (**Figure 5**).

Most people have accepted the situation to look after of their mental health, 86% of 13–17 years, 38% of people of 18–24 years, 45% of people of 25–44 years and 40% of people of 45+ age group have engaged themselves in doing meditation or yoga. People of 18–24 years opted to eat well (52%), care others (45%) and talk to someone they have not talked for long (42%) for their better mental health. In 25–44 age group, opted to keep themselves active (53%), eat well (52%), to do things they are good at and care others are (35%). While in 44+ people tried to be active (35%), contact people they have not contacted so long (50%), care others (45%) and drink sensibly (20%).

Similarly, this questionnaire gives us more details about people's anxiousness, tiredness and concentration problem being faced. Survey shows that most of the people have only one hour of news watching time a day, some are irritated and facing arguments resulting into fights. Few families are also facing Domestic violence during period of pandemic and lockdown.

#### **4. Resilience and adaptive coping**

Resilience helps to protect one from mental illness by using the available resources. Resilience is a protective factor against development of mental disorder and a risk factor for a number of clinical conditions, e.g. suicide [9]. On one side, the nation as a whole focuses on controlling the pandemic by adapting different strategies like isolation and quarantined period, other side some organizations are paying attention towards mental health during COVID-19. Lack of social interactions and staying home for longer time effects mental wellness. One should not be over exposed to media coverage, should maintain happy relationship, get in touch

*COVID-19 in India: Problems, Challenges and Strategies (Psychological Aspects) DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.100111*

**Figure 6.** *People can adopt following various lifestyles to resilient/cope with mental health challenges.*


**Figure 7.** *Points for good mental health during COVID-19 pandemic.*

of friends and relatives through social media to whom you have not been contacting since too long. Reaching out to children and others is good for everyone as feeling close to others reduces anxiety and boost the immune system. For coping with mental health issues people should follow a particular routine such as regular exercise, proper sleep, follow a strict routine which helps us to be active, efficient, reduce the need of will power, reduces procrastination, builds momentum and a person's self-confident by reducing stress, staying calm also helps you to overcome stress and other diseases such as hypertension diseases, one should practice breathing exercises which maintains the proper blood flow in the body with calmness in mind (**Figures 6** and **7**).

#### **5. Adjustment problems**

India's coronavirus forced many citizens to return their countryside homes with family. After few days of pandemic, daily wagers were in a great trouble because of non-availability of work so their survival become very difficult. The COVID-19 lockdown has the most daunting impact on such people whereby most of them must fight for survival on a daily basis. Many agencies are trying to support daily wage workers, but the entire cycle of revenue has been greatly troubled in few weeks.

During this time of uncertainty, employers may experience changes in productivity. When productivity drops, it has direct impact on jobs. One cannot get new job during this period and siting home in this situation makes it more difficult and effect can be seen on faces of family members too. Millions of lives have been heavily affected by several psychological changes such as increased levels of loneliness as being locked in home, no interaction with neighbors and relatives result in overthinking, loneliness and depression.

Aged people are particularly susceptible to the risk of infection from COVID-19, especially those with chronic health conditions such as hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, and diabetes. Older persons are not just struggling with great health risks but are also less capable of keeping themselves in isolation. Although social distancing is necessary to reduce the spread of diseases, but some families are understanding that elders also require proper care and interaction. Mostly getting locked in a room alone irritates them, and inability to use technology and differentiate between real and fake news also makes them worried and unable to adjust with family. Pandemic and lockdown increased the burden of household work for all families. Children are off school, no service provider (dhobi, cook, driver, gardener, etc.) and regardless to whether they hold job or not. Women are taking care of cleanliness and disinfecting everything and everyone coming in house other than daily works.

#### **6. COVID-19 related stigma among people**

Social stigma in the context of health is the negative factor between a person or group of people sharing certain characteristics or symptoms of specific disease. During this outbreak, individuals are branded, treated badly, discriminated, and suffer status loss due to merging with infected people. Such treatment impacts adversely to those with symptoms as well as their caregivers, family, friends and communities. People who do not have the disease but share other characteristics with this group may also suffer from stigma [10].

*COVID-19 in India: Problems, Challenges and Strategies (Psychological Aspects) DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.100111*

The level of stigma associated with COVID-19 is based on three main factor:

1. It is a disease that is new and for which there are still many unknowns;


Unfortunately, these factors are also fueling harmful stereotypes.

Effects that stigma can cause: Drive people to hide illness to void discrimination, prevent people from seeking health care immediately and discourage them from adopting healthy behaviors. To understand the ways in which this can incite violence and push public in harm, one needs to look at a case of Himachal Pradesh, where Mohammad Dilshad, a 37 year old resident of Una district, hung himself after being continuously taunted and harassed by community despite he tested corona negative (**Figure 8**) [11].

In the COVID-19 emergency, medical workers and security services were at high risk of infection. They were facing overwork, frustration, discrimination, isolation, patients with negative emotions, a lack of contact with their families and exhaustion. This situation causes mental health problems such as stress, anxiety, depressive symptoms insomnia, denial, anger and fear. These mental health problems not only affect attention, understanding and decision-making capacity of medical workers, which could hinder the fight against COVID-19 but they could also have a lasting effect on their overall well being. Stigmatized groups may often be deprived of the resources they need to take care of themselves and their families. Stigma can present major barriers against healthcare seeking, social marginalization, distrust in health authorities and distortion of public perception of risk, resulting in massive panic among citizen.

Groups experiencing stigma related to COVID-19 are mostly the health workers and emergency respondents, people returning from travel, people with the disease, their family and friends and people released from quarantine. The stigmatized people may be excluded or shunned in social situations, denied some kind of opportunity, may be denied access to adequate housing and health caregiver and they might be targets of verbal, emotional and physical abuse.



#### **Figure 8.**

*There are some do's and dont's on language when talking.*
