Association between Anxiety, COVID-19 Status and Symptoms of Patients attending Fever Clinic of a Tertiary Level COVID-19 Hospital, West Bengal, India: A Cross-sectional Study

Introduction: The Coronavirus Disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused considerable panic and anguish among the world's population, including India. So, besides physical health, COVID-19 has considerably left its mark on mental health. Aim: To describe the study population according to their clinico-social, demographic profile, the level of anxiety prior to COVID-19 rapid antigen testing, and to explore the determinants of anxiety among COVID-19 suspected patients. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted in June, 2021-August, 2021 with a sample of 197 adult participants attending the fever clinic of Medical College, Kolkata, West Bengal, India. The data collection tool used was a predesigned, pretested structured schedule where the level of anxiety was measured with the Generalised Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) self-administered questionnaire. Relevant frequencies, percentages, central tendencies, and dispersions were calculated. Results: Total of 197 responses were analysed, the mean age of respondents was 44.43 +/- 16.54 years with 58.4% male. Among the patients, 64.5% were vaccinated and around 50.3% of total patients were partially or fully vaccinated by Covishield. Of the 197 respondents included in the study, 11.7% had anxiety (GAD score >= 10) before Rapid Antigen Testing (RAT) and among the participants who tested positive (70 patients), 10 patients (14.3%) had anxiety. Education, occupation, number of the symptoms and the symptoms of sore throat, myalgia and joint pain were significantly associated with the anxiety level. Number of symptoms, joint pain, fatigue, weakness and current fever status was significantly associated with RAT positivity. Conclusion: One out of every 10 patients attending fever clinic with suspected COVID-19 suffered from significant anxiety before the RAT test. These findings mandates linking counselling services with RAT testing facility at the fever clinic.