A Comparison of Prevalence of Stress and Anxiety during the COVID-19 Pandemic Among Healthcare Professionals and General Population: A Web-Based Cross-Sectional Study

NOTE: This paper has already been presented in Andhra Pradesh Psychiatry Conference (APPSYCON) 2020. AIM: To assess the prevalence of stress and anxiety among individuals of two groups; Healthcare Professionals (HPs) and non-Healthcare Professionals (non-HPs). METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted between 31(st) August 2020 and 9(th) September 2020 through a web-based questionnaire, designed using the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) and Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HAM-A). Total 390 participants were recruited using the Snowballing Sampling Method. RESULTS: Out of 390 participants, 180 were HPs (46.15%) and 210 were non-HPs (53.84%). Mean age of the respondents was 32.94 ± 10.201 years 86.1% respondents reported moderate stress and 9.5% high perceived stress; while 9.7% respondents had mild to moderate anxiety and 8% had severe anxiety. The difference between the levels of stress and anxiety among HPs and non-HPS was statistically insignificant. CONCLUSION: The sample population showed moderate level of stress and low level of anxiety with no statistically significant difference between HPs and non-HPs; but a significant number of people in the sample population had significant levels of stress and anxiety.