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BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Mental Health
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1526300
This article is part of the Research Topic Environmental Risk Factors for Depression: Unveiling Pathways to Resilience and Public Mental Health Equity View all 17 articles
Food scarcity and decrease in income are associated with depression after COVID -19
Provisionally accepted
Dharmendra Gahwai 1
Sonal Dayama 2* Aakanksha Mishra 3
Sandip Kumar Chandraker 3 Babita Sahu 3 Mini Sharma 4
Ravindra Kumar 5*- 1 Directorate of Health Services, Raipur, India
- 2 ESIC Medical College, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India
- 3 Model Rural Health Research Unit, Jheet, Durg, India
- 4 Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru Memorial Medical College, Raipur, Chhattisgarh, India
- 5 National Institute for Research in Tribal Health (ICMR), Jabalpur, India
Objective: The current study is a cross-sectional survey that aims to assess an association COVID-19 on mental health in rural areas of Central India.: Generalized Anxiety Disorder Assessment (GAD-7), Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), and Impact of Events Scale-Revised (IES-R) were used to evaluate the anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among families with at least one member having been affected by COVID-19 during November 2022 to December 2022 in Durg District of Chhattisgarh State.Results: A total of 431 participants were interviewed from 18 villages of Durg district of Chhattisgarh state. Symptoms of distress, anxiety and depression were observed in 26.2%, 14.8% and 11.8% of participants. The death of family members due to COVID-19 and out of pocket expenditure was considerably associated with a higher risk of mental distress. A reduction in income was significantly associated with depression (p-value=0.025, OR=2.066, 95% CI=1.115-3.817). Decline in income was also linked to depression among study participants (p value=0.025, OR=2.066, 95% CI=1.115-3.817). Education, smoking and out of pocket expenditure was found be independently associated with occurrence of symptoms concerned with PTSD.The study points to the significance of socioeconomic factors like food security, and income stability during covid-19 in mental health outcomes even after one year of pandemic. Increasing access to mental health resources and support for those affected by financial and food insecurities can help individuals cope with stress and maintain mental wellbeing.
Keywords: Mental Health, Anxiety, Depression, Post-traumatic stress disease, COVID-19, Rural area
Received: 11 Nov 2024; Accepted: 21 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Gahwai, Dayama, Mishra, Chandraker, Sahu, Sharma and Kumar. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Sonal Dayama, ESIC Medical College, Hyderabad, 500038, Andhra Pradesh, India
Ravindra Kumar, National Institute for Research in Tribal Health (ICMR), Jabalpur, India
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