Anxiety, depressive symptoms, sleep patterns & associated factors among Bangladeshi wage earners during the COVID-19 pandemic: a cross-sectional study

ABSTRACT

The economic vulnerability imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic induces stress on mental health of wage earners in Bangladesh which is largely unexplored. This evidence gap was addressed in this study aiming to evaluate the mental health difficulties among Bangladeshi wage earners by assessing the associated factors influencing anxiety, depressive symptoms and sleep patterns. This cross-sectional study was conducted among 707 individual Bangladeshi wage earners in May 2020. The questionnaire included information about sleep duration, the Patient health questionnaire (PHQ-9), and the Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD-7) scales. The study revealed that anxiety and depressive symptoms were associated with male sex, higher educational status, service holder occupation and lower monthly income (p ≤ 0.01). Fear of COVID-19 when working outside during the pandemic situation was inextricably linked with anxiety (AOR = 2.08; 95% CI: 1.42–3.04) and depressive symptoms (AOR = 1.51; 95% CI = 1.04–2.20). Respondents who were responsible to financially support their family experienced significantly decreased duration of sleep (β = −0.68; 95% CI: −1.18 to −0.20). The results of this study provided novel evidence on psychological difficulties among Bangladeshi wage earners which calls for an in-depth and longitudinal evaluation and immediate low-intensity psychosocial interventions.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• anxiety
• depressive symptoms
• sleep pattern
• wage earners
• Bangladesh

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank all the participants who voluntarily offered their time, conscientiously documented their lives, and provided honest and thoughtful responses during this untoward COVID-19 situation. We also thank the personnel who supported implementation and online data collection of this study.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Credit authorship contribution statement

Mst. Sadia Sultana: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Data curation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Validation. Abid Hasan Khan: Investigation, Data curation, Formal analysis, Writing – original draft, Validation. Sahadat Hossain: Conceptualization, Supervision, Writing – review & editing, Validation. Adnan Ansar: Writing – review & editing, Validation. Md. Tajuddin Sikder: Writing – review & editing, Validation. M. Tasdik Hasan: Writing – review & editing, Validation.

Ethics and consent to participate

Ethical standards were maintained to the highest possible extent whilst the study was conducted. All participants read and understood a consent form and agreed to participate in the study. Furthermore, this research is supported by the Department of Public Health and Informatics, Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh.

Additional information

Funding

Self-funded.