Covid stress predicts depression, anxiety and stress symptoms of Filipino respondents

Experiencing a pandemic and being quarantined have been proven to have debilitating effects in mental health. Some of the existing studies mentioned in this research have been conducted to assess the presence of possible mental health concerns brought about by the pandemic but most of these studies focused on the earlier phase of the pandemic. The present study focuses on the reported distress of the respondents who have been through a strict quarantine since March 2020 and are now experiencing a more relaxed lockdown. The objective of this research is to determine if COVID stress predicts common mental health concerns such as stress, depression and anxiety. A survey was conducted with 421 Filipino respondents ages 15 – 65 utilizing the COVID Stress Scales (CSS) by Taylor et al. (2020) and DASS-21. Correlational analysis was utilized showing the COVID Stress is a predictor of depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms. Then, comparative analyses were conducted to determine if differences of COVID stress across age groups, gender, occupation, and exposure. The results show that students and unemployed respondents are highly vulnerable to COVID stress and its mental health implications. Men and women did not significantly differ in distress. Surprisingly, those who have a COVID positive family member had the lowest COVID stress and DASS scores. There were 40.7% percent who experienced moderate to severe stress, 60.3% had moderate to severe anxiety and 53.1% of the respondents had moderate to severe depression. These findings show that the pandemic stress has debilitating effects on mental health. Common mental health concerns (e.g. depression and anxiety) may be highly prevalent due to the COVID-19 pandemic