Stress under the novel coronavirus
The first national survey of the psychological impact of the novel coronavirus (新型冠状病毒) collected data between Jan 31 and Feb 10. It found that 35 percent of people suffer psychological stress, and the level of the stress was to do with various factors.
According to the research, the stress level was associated with sex, age and education. Female showed higher psychological stress than male. People aged between 18 and 30 showed the highest level of stress. They can get much information from social media, which can easily cause stress. The elderly have also been psychologically impacted, since this widespread disease is most likely to kill older patients. Furthermore, people with higher education tended to have more stress for their knowledge of health.
Further, people may have higher stress due to their jobs. It is evident that migrant workers (外来务工人员) have the highest level of stress among all workers because they worry about the virus carried in public transports when returning to their jobs, about work delays and loss of income as they stop working, and about job opportunities that may dry up before the cities they work in return to full operations.
In addition, stress levels have something to do with region for its local medical resources, efficiency of public health system, prevention and control measures. For example, Shanghai is at high risk because of the large population of migrant workers, but the stress level is not in the high level. This may be because Shanghai has one of the best public health systems in China, according to the research.
Ultimately, the prevention and control measures taken by the Chinese government have made people's stress decrease. Still, based on the research, psychologists suggested more attention be paid to young adults and migrant workers who have higher stress.
