Originally published in SSRN on 23 June 2020

Background: The pandemic of Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has cost a large number of lives and is causing a huge mental stress among people. We conducted a study to identify the sociodemographic, clinical characteristics, and prevalence of anxiety and depression among a group of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Bangladesh.

Methods: An online cross-sectional survey using a preformed questionnaire adapted in Google form was conducted for data collection. The form was shared along with a brief introduction and rationale via Facebook, Twitter, Facebook Messenger, Viber, and What’s App. Formal ethical clearance was taken from the Biomedical Research Foundation, Bangladesh. An informed consent was ensured before participation.

Results: Seventy-four cases of COVID-19 were included who had an average age of 42.59±14.43 years with male predominance (77%). 29.7% were doing health-care related jobs and 14.9% lost their jobs due to COVID-19. Patients had a median income of BDT 30000. Of all, 87.8% of patients were symptomatic and presented with fever (77%), cough (58.8%), breathlessness (24.3%), myalgia (24.3%), sore throat (21.6%), fatigue (17.6%), nausea and/or vomiting (12.2%), headache (12.2%), runny nose (9.5%), chest pain (9.5%), diarrhea (8.1%), ARDS (2.7%), stuffy nose (2.7%), conjunctivitis (1.4%) and oral ulcer (1.4%). Overall, prevalence of anxiety and depression was 60% and 52.9%, respectively. Among the participants, 11.4% had only anxiety, 4.3% had only depression and 48.6% had both.

Conclusion: Patients were mostly middle aged, male and health workers. Typical presentation were fever and cough. Nearly two-thirds of the patients had either or both anxiety and depression.

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