Title: Psychological impact of COVID-19 pandemic lockdown: A survey based study to assess mental health education users in Bangladesh

Background and Aims: The pandemic outbreak of COVID-19 has been devastating not only for its direct impact on lives and physical health settings, but also on mental health status Due to the pandemic, the majority of the individuals exposed to an unprecedented stressful lockdown situation with unknown duration worldwide This study aimed to evaluate the psychological health (prevalence of perceived stress, anxiety, and depression as well as insomnia symptoms) impact of COVID-19 lockdown on the general peoples and assess the mental health education users Methods: Following the previous literatures, semi-structured questionnaires were developed and snowball sampling technique was applied in this qualitative study Data were analyzed via SPSS Statistical software;while p<0 05 was considered significant Results: Our result revealed that, among 50% anxiety symptoms, mild, moderate and severe level were of 28%, 17 % and 5%, respectively whereas the percentages of minimal, moderate and severe symptoms were found to be 8 4%, 2 9% and 1 6%, corresponding among 12 9% depressed people whereas sub-threshold, moderate and severe clinical symptoms (15%, 6 % and 2%, respectively) among 23 3% insomnia However, self-reported stress as well as mental dysfunction showed significant value of 54 4% and 1 3%, respectively in contrasting with 23 3% demonstrated normal psychic behavior Dual psychiatric problems including stress and anxiety, anxiety and insomnia and depression and insomnia symptoms were reported by 37%, 15% and 6% participants, respectively There was insignificant (p<0 05) mental health effects in response to gender variations 21%, 16%, 2% and 5% exhibited stress, anxiety, depression and insomnia among 30% female, and the results were 35%, 34%, 11% and 18% among 69 6% male respondents The study reported that, 47 4% respondents used health education related to decreasing pandemic mental distress syndromes Conclusion: An integrated approach in few settings including mental health educations, community connectedness and effective health policies are needed not only to manage psychological pandemic health problems and for strengthening the overall health systems