Stress perception during COVID-19 pandemic

Stress perception: COVID-19

Abstract

Introduction: The Covid-19 pandemic had an impact on the mental health among the population. Objective: We aimed to analyze the perceived stress levels and the peritraumatic stress index in two different samples with the portuguese nationality, one residing in Portugal (study 1) and other living abroad (study 2). We also verified the effect of the gender and the place of residence in this two samples for the two stress indicatores. Method: Data collection took place from May 6th to June 8th. A snowball sampling method was applied to recruit participants. A web-based survey was developed to collect sociodemographic information and data of Perceived Estresse Scale (PSS-10) and Peritraumatic Estresse Index Covid- 19 (IEPC). Population living in Portugal inclued 369 subjects and the population living abroud inclued 44 subjects. Results: From study 1, 43% of the sample manifested high levels of perceived stress, and 46.3% severe psychological distress, resulting from Covid-19 (peritraumatic stress). In study 2, the results showed that 50% of the subjects had high levels of perceived stress, and 50% had severe psychological distress because of the most recent pandemic. Residents in Portugal showed higher values ​​in all measures studied; female gender also showed higher values ​​in the 2 studies, in all measures. Conclusion: The findings of this study suggest that the pandemic situation caused psychological distress in the Portuguese people. Therefore, we hope that this study can be helpful to develop interventions strategies to reduce/ prevent psychological distress and future vulnerabilities in the mental health of the Portuguese population.