Journal Article

Mental health status of informal waste workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh

Haque, Md. Rajwanul, Rahman, Md. Mosfequr, Khan, Md. Mostaured Ali, Rahman, M. Sajjadur, Begum, Shawkat A.

2022

Overview

The deadliest coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is taking thousands of lives worldwide and presents an extraordinary challenge to mental resilience. This study assesses mental health status during the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated factors among informal waste workers in Bangladesh. A cross-sectional survey was conducted in June 2020 among 176 informal waste workers selected from nine municipalities and one city corporation in Bangladesh. General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) was used to assess respondents’ mental health. The study found that 80.6% of the individuals were suffering from psychological distress; 67.6% reported anxiety and depression, 92.6% reported social dysfunction, and 19.9% reported loss of confidence. The likelihood of psychological distress (Risk ratio [RR]: 1.23, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.02–1.48) was significantly higher for female than male. Multiple COVID-19 symptoms of the family members (RR: 1.20, 95% CI: 1.03–1.41), unawareness about COVID-19 infected neighbor (RR: 1.21, 95% CI: 1.04–1.41), income reduction (RR: 1.60, 95% CI: 1.06–2.41) and daily household meal reduction (RR: 1.34; 95% CI: 1.03–1.73) were also found to be associated with psychological distress. These identified factors should be considered in policy-making and support programs for the informal waste workers to manage the pandemic situation as well as combating COVID-19 related psychological challenges.

• Publisher: Public Library of Science,Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subject: Adult / Anxieties / Anxiety / Anxiety Disorders / Bangladesh / Bangladesh - epidemiology / Biology and Life Sciences / Confidence intervals / Control / Coronaviruses / COVID-19 / COVID-19 - epidemiology / COVID-19 - psychology / Cross-Sectional Studies / Data collection / Depression / Depressive Disorder / Developing countries / Disease transmission / Epidemics / Essential workers / Female / Health aspects / Health risks / Health Status / Humans / Interviews / LDCs / Male / Medicine and Health Sciences / Mental depression / Mental disorders / Mental health / Mental Health - trends / Middle Aged / Municipalities / Pandemics / Population / Psychological aspects / Psychological Distress / Psychological stress / Questionnaires / Reduction / Resilience (Psychology) / Sanitary Engineering - methods / Sanitary Engineering - trends / Sanitation / Sanitation workers / SARS-CoV-2 - pathogenicity / Signs and symptoms / Social Sciences / Surveys / Surveys and Questionnaires / Viral diseases / Waste management / Workers / Working Poor - psychology