Original Research Article

Mental Stress of COVID-19 Pandemic and Lockdown among Nursing Students and Staff of University of Lahore

Nargis Mansha^1*, Muhammad Hussain², Muhammad Afzal³, Syed Amir Gilani⁴

¹BS Nursing, Lahore School of Nursing,, The University of Lahore, PO Box 54000, Lahore, Pakistan.
²Assistant Professor, Lahore School of Nursing, The University of Lahore, PO Box 54000, Lahore, Pakistan.
³Associate Professor, Lahore School of Nursing, The University of Lahore, PO Box 54000, Lahore, Pakistan.
⁴Professor, FAHS, The University of Lahore, PO Box 54000, Lahore, Pakistan.

*Corresponding Author E-mail: nargismansha700@gmail.com/
mughalnargis782@gmail.com
Tel: +92(0)4235321
Fax: +924235321
Mobile Phone: 03054043300

Received: 09 January 2021  I  Accepted: 26 February 2021  I  Published: 28 September 2022  I  Article ID: MRJMMS21016
Copyright © 2022 Author(s) retain the copyright of this article.
This article is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0.

Abstract

Coronavirus (COVID-19) firstly appeared in China in 2019 as a deadly disease which gradually encompassed the whole world. For its prevention, a nationwide quarantine and lockdown was suggested and applied in many countries which had great impact not only on the general public and educational system but all the systems of the world psychologically. It could be observed that the ratio of psychological impact i.e. stress, anxiety and depression varies among people related to different factors. The students and the workers of university especially of the medical staff influenced by this pandemic much more. Nationwide lockdown affected the study and created emotional disturbance of uncertainty as no one knows how and when all the things and classes will go on previous routine. I will hereby evaluate the ratio and frequency of psychological impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the medical students, workers and university staff. For this purpose, a questionnaire based survey will be conducted from 150 participants including the nursing staff, students and medical students as well as university faculty members and workers. The results will be compiled by the method and will be analysed by using standard tools. The aim of this study will be to find the factors so that it will be easy to manage the mental health affecting factors in early stages and prevent the population of university from psychological issues. Covid19 is a very threatening and alarming condition all over the world. It has affected worldwide social, economic and mental health of the people, because of coronavirus people are afraid of going outside, afraid to moot anyone, afraid to continue their job as they perform their work before. At the same time corona affected most of the students' lives because during the corona pandemic students cannot attend their physical classes on campus. That is why the online system introduced is totally unfavourable and most of the students are mentally disturbed due to this pandemic. Nursing students and staff are highly affected due to this pandemic because they have to perform their clinical duties in hospital. The objective is to evaluate the psychological effects of COVID-19 outbreak and lockdown among students and workers of university. This study is a cross- sectional to investigate the mental stress of students and nursing staff during the lockdown of corona pandemic data was analysed on the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 23. The results showed that many of the respondents had no effect of covid19 pandemic but on the other hand many of the people are badly affected by this pandemic on their mental and social health. This research concludes that most of the people that are affected by this coronavirus are highly disparate while some of the people are not affected.

Keywords: COVID-19, Medical university staff, Mental health, Psychological impact