Effect of covid-19 pandemic on the socio-economic status, anxiety, and depression among youths in Kumi District, Uganda

Abstract

Background: Uganda is ranked among the top six countries in Africa in rates of depressive disorders while anxiety and depression resulting from low economic status is the second leading cause of death among youths 10-34 years of age. This problem has been worsened by the Covid 19 pandemic, thus this study aimed to determine the effect of Covid-19 pandemic on the socio economic status, anxiety and depression among youths in Kumi District, Uganda Method: This was a cross-sectional survey involving collection of data from the youths in Kumi district. This study used questionnaires to interview a total of 278 participants. Collected data was entered and cleaned in Microsoft excel 2016 and exported to SPSS (Version 21) for further analyses. Descriptive analysis to report personal data and Pearson correlational analysis was done to assess the relationship between Socio-economic status, Anxiety and Depression among the youths in Kumi district. Results: We found that there was significant relationship between socio-economic status and anxiety (r= -0.593, p= 0.00). here was significant relationship between socio-economic status and depression (r= -0.361, p= 0.00), and there was significant relationship between anxiety and depression (r= -0.216, p= 0.00). Conclusion: Socio-economic status, Anxiety and Depression are important factors that influence youths in Kimu district.