Evani Ramachandra Rao1, Seelam Satish2
BACKGROUND
Generally during pandemic, mental health needs are largely neglected and patients
with psychiatric illness are given less medical care as majority of the health
professionals are involved in acute management of the pandemic. In this study we
wanted to determine the difference between stress and anxiety in patients with
bipolar affective disorder (BPAD) and the general population.
METHODS
It was a cross sectional study and convenient sampling was used. The study was
conducted in Government Hospital for Mental Care, Visakhapatnam. The study
included 60 participants of whom 30 participants are patients with bipolar affective
disorder who were currently in remission and 30 participants were from general
population and were evaluated using semi structured proforma for
sociodemographic data and perceived stress scale to assess perceived stress,
Hamilton anxiety rating scale to assess anxiety. Results were analyzed statistically.
RESULTS
The results showed statistically significant difference in severity of perceived stress
and anxiety among patients with bipolar affective disorder and the general
population.
CONCLUSIONS
Our study results re-emphasize the fact that there should be an increased
awareness about patients with psychiatric illness like bipolar affective disorder as
targets for care with regular psychiatric intervention during Covid-19 pandemic.
With our study, we want to re-iterate the fact that patients with psychiatric illness
experience exacerbation of symptoms during infectious disease epidemic. Patients
diagnosed with bipolar affective disorder can also have comorbid anxiety disorder,
even after treating the mood disorder episode. Residual anxiety may persist and
in times of infectious diseases epidemic, these anxiety symptoms will exacerbate
leading to poor quality of life and non-compliance to medication. With our study
we want to recommend that proper care and regular follow-up schedules have to
be formulated by mental health professionals and mental health institutions to
reduce and prevent exacerbation of symptoms and improve treatment compliance
which in turn helps in preventing relapse of bipolar affective disorder.
