Psychological Distress among Sri Lankans in the COVID-19 Pandemic Situation

Abstract

The COVID-19 is a new form of coronavirus and its outbreak has recognized as a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO, 2020) after it was detected initially in Wuhan, China and it has been spread all over the world by now. In Sri Lanka, the first person who was identified as positive for COVID-19 was a Chinese tourist lady, it was in late January 2020. The first Sri Lankan person identified positive for COVID19 was in early February 2020. By now, there are around 1700 people has identified as positive for COVID-19 and 11 deaths were reported by the end of June 2020. This article focuses on the mental health wellbeing to assess the frequency of stress, depression, and anxiety among the Sri Lankan public during the COVID-19 pandemic.