COVID-19 and stress of Indian youth: An association with background, on-line mode of teaching, resilience and hope

BACKGROUND: COVID-19 pandemic causes serious threats to physical health and triggers wide varieties of psychological problems, including anxiety and depression. Youth exhibit a greater risk of developing psychological distress, especially during epidemics influencing their wellbeing. OBJECTIVES: To identify the relevant dimensions of psychological stress, mental health, hope and resilience and to examine the prevalence of stress in Indian youth and its relationship with socio-demographic information, online-mode of teaching, hope and resilience. METHOD: A cross-sectional online survey obtained information on socio-demographic background, online-mode of teaching, psychological stress, hope and resilience from the Indian youth. A Factor Analysis is also conducted on the recompenses of the Indian youth on psychological stress, mental health, hope and resilience separately to identify the major factors associated with parameters. The sample size in this study was 317, which is more than the required sample size (Tabachnik et al., 2001). RESULTS: About 87% of the Indian youth perceived moderate to a high levels of psychological stress during the current COVID-19 pandemic. Different demographic, sociographic and psychographic segments were found to have high stress levels due to the pandemic, while psychological stress was found to be negatively correlated with resilience as well as hope. The findings identified significant dimensions of the stress caused by the pandemic and also identified the dimensions of mental health, resilience and hope among the study subjects. CONCLUSION: As stress has a long-term impact on human psychology and can disrupt the lives of people and as the findings suggest that the young population of the country have faced the greatest amount of stress during the pandemic, a greater need for mental health support is required to the young population, especially in post pandemic situations. The integration of online counselling and stress management programs could assist in mitigating the stress of youth involved in distance learning.