COVID-19 pandemic: stress level and quality of life in contaminated and non-contaminated cases

Abstract

Introduction: The coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has not only impacted physical health, as result of the severe acute respiratory syndrome caused by the virus, but has also impacted mental health, the economic and social areas. In addition, the focus of pandemic scenario was the COVID-19 contingency, which led to the appearance or worsening of other diseases. Besides the scopes originated from the pandemic became potential triggers of stress and interference in the population’s quality of life. Proposition: to evaluate the perceived stress index and the population’s quality of life in two groups of people: first, those who had a confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19 and, second, individuals who did not contract the disease. Materials and Methods: 66 individuals participated in the research, between 18 and 60 years old, being 33 people without contamination and 33 people who had a confirmed diagnosis. Participants answered two questionnaires: The Perceived Stress Questionnaire (QEP) to assess stress and another questionnaire to assess quality of life (SF-36). Results: The analysis of the results showed that the QEP of non-contaminated individuals was lower (0.64 + 0.04) than that of individuals who tested positive for the disease (0.73 + 0.02) (p = 0.0484), statistically significant difference, which shows that positive cases are perceived to be more stressed. In the analysis of SF-36, only the Functional Capacity domain showed statistically significant difference, and the volunteers who did not have the disease presented higher value (93.3 + 2.0) than contaminated individuals (73.0 + 3.6) (p < 0.0001), suggesting better quality of life. Conclusion: The study presents results that indicate the pandemic negatively impacted the health of the population, as participants diagnosed with COVID-19 had greater perceived stress and lower quality of life, compared to non-contaminated ones.