Socio-environmental factors affecting mental health of people during Covid-19 in coastal urban areas of Bangladesh

At present the world is facing a boisterous challenge put by COVID-19 due to which countries are passing very difficult times. COVID-19 has now put both physical and mental impacts. However, how socioenvironmental factors affect mental health (stress and anxiety) during COVID-19 in developing countries is poorly understood, and so far, too few scholarly works have been accomplished focusing these countries. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the role of socioenvironmental factors on mental health of people during COVID-19 in the costal urban areas of Bangladesh, where we contemplate Composite COVID Stress Index (CCSI) and COVID Anxiety Scale (CAS) for analyzing mental health. Applying a cross-sectional web-based survey, 115 respondents were considered for this study. As analytical tools- Explanatory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Weighted Least Square (WLS) were applied, along with descriptive statistics. The results advocate that agitation, scarcity, trauma, and infodemic altogether affect the degree of stress during COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, a number of socioenvironmental factors namely agitation, scarcity, infodemic, age, literacy level, living condition (in terms of settlement type), source of drinking water, security status (in terms of criminal activity), and number of ailments significantly affect the degree of coronavirus triggered anxiety during the pandemic for the respondents. Thus, findings propose the need of both physical and psychological healthcare services, online-based healthcare programs and spread of authentic COVID-19 information and basic amenities sufficiency.