ABSTRACT
COVID-19 first marked its presence in December 2019 and continues to prevail till date with oscillating surges and falls has impacted humans all over the globe. As such many spheres of humanlife and activities are being adversely affected by its profound impact on global mental health. The unpredictability of the situation, the uncertainty of when to control the disease, its spread to different geographic locations, and the seriousness of the risk post-infection, together have aggravated the stressfulness of the situation. There has been an alarming rise in cases of depression and anxiety in the Kashmir Valley, India. In this context, the present paper explores the vulnerability of recovered COVID-19 patients to such mental health concerns. The paper uses primary sources of data with a sample set of 300 recovered COVID-19 patients in one of the largest cities of Kashmir Valley, Srinagar. The sample-set is divided into two groups (hospitalized and home quarantined). For depression and anxiety, a questionnaire based on PHQ-9 and GAD-7 is used for all the COVID-19 patients, 37.02% were found to have clinically defined depression and 24.31% to have clinically defined anxiety. The risk of severe depression and severe anxiety levels is higher in home quarantined patients (relative risk, RR = 1.308, 95% CI = 0.77 - 2.2; and relative risk, RR = 1.17, 95% CI = 0.9 – 1.5 respectively). Three risk factors like retesting positive for COVID-19, pre-existing health conditions (diabetes, hypertension, heart problems), and taking longer to recover from COVID-19 (>12 days) played a significant role in aggravating the severity of mental health problems. The need for mental health support is of utmost importance. An urgent need for researchers, clinicians, and policymakers is the need of the hour to deal with the burning problem of deteriorating mental health in the Kashmir valley.
