Psychological Impact of COVID-19 Among People from the Banking Sector in Bangladesh: a Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Despite the pandemic, the Government of Bangladesh decided to keep the banks open to a limited extent to keep the country’s economy afloat. The aim of this study is to assess the psychological impact of COVID-19 among the bankers who are usually more exposed to random people that put them at great risk to be affected. A total of 248 bankers willingly answered our questionnaire consisting of DASS-21 and relevant questions. Cronbach’s reliability coefficient for the DASS-21 scale ranges from 0.84 to 0.90 which advocates that DASS-21 scales are highly reliable measures for this study. Results show that among participants, 11.1% were severe to extremely stressed, 10.6% of bankers were severe to extremely anxious, and 12.1% of them were severe to extremely depressed. The study illustrated, among the Bankers whose colleagues were infected (B=2.251, 95% CI: − 1.473, 3.029), who smoking more (B= 1.505, 95% CI: 0.411, 2.599), who wake up from sleep having a bad dreams (B = 1.018, 95% CI: 0.057, 1.979), their fear of getting infected (B = 1.717, 95% CI: 0.392, 3.04), who use public transportation (B = 1.378, 95% CI: 0.430, 2.236), who misbehave with family members (B = 1.033, 95% CI: 0.071, 1.995) and who beaten children (B = 1.210, 95% CI: 0.141, 2.279) were responsible for higher stress, depression and anxiety scores respectively. Whereas, taking nutritious food (B = −0.229, 95% CI: −0.30, 1.763), doing physical exercises (B = −0.325, 95% CI: −1.158, 0.508) reduced depression, stress and anxiety scores. The authors believed that the result of the study will be beneficial for the government and its policymakers to take psychological intervention strategies and to make certain sufficient corporal settlement of the banking professionals.