COVID-19 outbreak in Bangladesh and associated psychological problems: An online survey.

Bangladesh is now experiencing the COVID-19 outbreak; however, there has been minimal focus on mental health over physical health problems during this pandemic in Bangladesh. The present study was conducted using self-rated scales on a sample of 500 Bangladeshi people to address this gap. Results suggested two-fifths of the participants had depression and anxiety symptoms, and one-third were highly worried and felt stressed. Females, students, unmarried, and 18-30-year-olds were in more vulnerable positions in terms of their mental health. These findings would be helpful to assess and formulate psychological interventions to improve the mental health of vulnerable groups.

Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Among Chinese People During the Omicron Outbreak and Its Impact on Sleep Quality and Alcohol Dependency.

Objective: The present study aims to assess the mental health of Chinese people during the Omicron variant outbreak in March 2022. This study also explores how coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) exposure history, vaccination status, sleep quality, and alcohol dependency symptoms influence mental health outcomes. Methods: The data were collected from 1049 Chinese people through Tencent using a structured questionnaire utilizing convenience sampling technique. The online cross-sectional study included the Chinese version of the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale 21, the Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test, Fear of COVID-19 Scale, Warwick Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale, and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index to assess depression, anxiety, stress, alcohol dependency, fear of COVID-19, and sleep quality, respectively. Statistical analyses included independent sample t-tests and χ 2 tests to assess the differences in study variables across demographic characteristics, and multiple linear regressions to assess the effect of the experience of COVID-19 infection, vaccination, and mental health variables on sleep quality and alcohol dependency. Results: Results showed that 11.5% to 32.4% of the participants had a poor mental health symptoms. Males had significantly higher depressive symptoms (χ 2 = 12.283, df = 4, P = .015) and alcohol dependency symptoms (χ 2 = 66.604, df = 3, P < .001), and females had significantly lower mental well-being (χ 2 = 12.742, df = 2, P = .002). Additionally, findings showed that stress (ß = .250, P < .001), mental well-being (ß = -.166, P < .001), and fear of COVID-19 (ß = .061, P = .029) predicted poorer sleep quality, and anxiety (ß = .115, P = .035) and mental well-being (ß = -.097, P = .002) predicted alcohol dependency symptoms. Conclusion: Since the pandemic-induced mental health challenges persist for a prolonged period, the findings of these relationships offer guidance for mental health professionals to formulate therapeutic interventions to help people cope with psychological crises.

The effect of perceived stress for work engagement in volunteers during the COVID-19 pandemic: the mediating role of psychological resilience and age differences.

Volunteers played an important role throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. This study investigated the characteristics of perceived stress, psychological resilience and work engagement among 910 Chinese volunteers of different ages in the first month of pandemic in Gansu province, China. The present study tested the correlations between perceived stress and work engagement, the mediating role of psychological resilience in the relationship and the differences among age groups. The results of this study showed that work engagement and psychological resilience increased with the age of the volunteers. Work engagement and resilience levels were higher in middle adulthood than in early adulthood. As predicted, perceived stress negatively predicted work engagement. A mediation analysis showed that psychological resilience partially explained the correlations between perceived stress and work engagement. Specifically, the mediating effect of psychological resilience in early adulthood was significant, but not in middle adulthood. Overall, this study demonstrates that work engagement increased with age and was negatively predicted by perceived stress, showing these factors were important for volunteers' work during COVID-19. Further, for those in early adulthood, psychological resilience mediated this relationship-highlighting another age difference among volunteers during COVID-19.

The Impact of Chinese Primary School Teachers' Sense of Work Meaningfulness on Organizational Commitment: A Chain Mediation Model.

Purpose: This present study aims to explore the effects of work meaningfulness on primary school teachers' self-reflection, self-efficacy and organizational commitment and their mechanisms of action. Methods: This study used a meaningfulness, self-reflection, self-efficacy, and organizational commitment measures. A total of 417 teachers from urban, rural, and mountainous elementary schools were recruited to complete the survey including the measures of work meaningfulness, self-reflection, self-efficacy, and organizational commitment. In this study, descriptive statistics were run using SPSS 26.0 and the relationship model between variables was tested with the SPSS macro program PROCESS. Results: The study found that work meaningfulness and self-efficacy independently predicted primary school teachers' organizational commitment, but self-reflection did not significantly predict organizational commitment. It was found that there was a significant positive correlation between the four studied variables of work meaningfulness, self-efficacy, self-reflection, and organizational commitment with correlation coefficients ranging from 0.24 to 0.57. The study also found that work meaningfulness can directly predict elementary school teachers' organizational commitment, and work meaningfulness can also indirectly predict elementary school teachers' organizational commitment through self-efficacy and self-reflection. Conclusion: The results of this study are useful for understanding the value of enhancing the organizational commitment of primary school teachers from a social cognitive perspective, and have implications for how to build a stable, high-quality and dynamic primary school teaching force.

Prevalence and nature of bullying in schools of Bangladesh: A pilot study.

Bullying at schools is considered as the most contemptible anti-social behavior for students (Neto, 2005). There is little information about the prevalence and nature of bullying victimization experiences among Bangladeshi school students. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the prevalence and nature of bullying experienced by Bangladeshi school students. A sample of 556 students were surveyed utilizing the translated Bangla version of the Multidimensional Bullying Victimization Scale. Nearly half of the participants were bullying victims in schools over the last year. Results showed that the most commonly experienced forms of bullying were pushing or shoving, being made fun of, and having rumours spread. Students who were boys, from public schools, and lived in urban areas had significantly higher bullying victimization experiences. Findings of this present study would be helpful for the policymakers and other stakeholders to reform anti-bullying policies and appoint school psychologists to ascertain positive behavior and eliminate bullying entirely.

Development and Psychometric Assessment of the Problematic QQ Use Scale among Adolescents.

The QQ social media platform is very popular among Chinese adolescents. As with other social media platforms (e.g., Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, etc.), there have been increasing reports that the use of QQ can be potentially problematic to a minority of users. However, unlike these other social media platforms, there is currently no scale to assess the risk of problematic QQ use. The present study developed the Problematic QQ Use Scale (PQQUS) among Chinese adolescents based on six core criteria of behavioral addiction (salience, tolerance, mood modification, loss of control, withdrawal, and conflict) that have been used in the development of other social media addiction scales. The scale was administered to a sample of 1008 Chinese school children to assess its psychometric properties, utilizing both classical test theory and item response theory. The analysis demonstrated that the PQQUS had good item discrimination indices relating to both CTT and IRT. The CFA results and Loevinger's H-coefficient suggested the PQQUS had a unidimensional factor structure. The PQQUS had good internal reliability, good composite reliability, and good concurrent validity (based on correlations with measures of anxiety, depression, self-esteem, and life satisfaction). The invariance testing between boys and girls suggested this scale is a valid assessment tool for both groups. Overall, the PQQUS is a psychometrically robust tool for assessing problematic QQ use and will have a key role in further research on problematic QQ use among Chinese adolescents.

Mental Health and Personality Traits during COVID-19 in China: A Latent Profile Analysis.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, mental health problems have increased and are likely to be influenced by personality traits. The present study investigated the association between personality traits and mental health problems (anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) symptoms, and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) symptoms) through the person-centered approach because this has some advantages over the variable-centered approach. The data were collected from a sample of 765 Chinese citizens who participated in an online survey in October 2020. Latent profile analysis identified three latent personality profiles-highly adaptive, adaptive, and maladaptive. Highly adaptive individuals had higher extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness, and lower neuroticism, while maladaptive individuals had lower extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness, and higher neuroticism. Multivariate analysis of variance results showed that individuals with highly adaptive profiles had lower anxiety, depression, and PTSD symptoms compared to individuals with adaptive and maladaptive profiles. The findings of the present study indicate mental health professionals would benefit from formulated intervention plans given the association between latent personality profiles and mental health problems.

Epidemic of COVID-19 in China and associated Psychological Problems.

The world is experiencing pandemic of the COVID-19 now, a RNA virus that spread out from Wuhan, China. Two countries, China first and later Italy, have gone to full lock down due to rapid spread of this virus. Till to date, no epidemiological data on mental health problems due to outbreak of the COVID-19 and mass isolation were not available. To meet this need, the present study was undertaken to assess the mental health status of Chinese people. An online survey was conducted on a sample of 1074 Chinese people, majority of whom from Hubei province. Lack of adequate opportunities to conduct face to face interview, anxiety, depression, mental well-being and alcohol consumption behavior were assessed via self-reported measures. Results showed higher rate of anxiety, depression, hazardous and harmful alcohol use, and lower mental wellbeing than usual ratio. Results also revealed that young people aged 21-40 years are in more vulnerable position in terms of their mental health conditions and alcohol use. To address mental health crisis during this epidemic, it is high time to implement multi-faceted approach (i.e. forming multidisciplinary mental health team, providing psychiatric treatments and other mental health services, utilizing online counseling platforms, rehabilitation program, ensuring certain care for vulnerable groups, etc.).