Posted: April 13th, 2023

Presentation Assignment

Research Essay
Rene Lat
Excelsior College
ENG101: English Composition
Professor Angela Shaw-Thornburg
April 4, 2021
How has the COVID 19 pandemic affected people’s mental health and substance
abuse?
According to World Health Organization Survey, COVID- 19 pandemic has disrupted the
lives of millions of people around the globe and the demand for mental health services has been
on the rise in most counties. The pandemic triggered vast lockdown and the entire population had
to go in isolation (Shroff & Becker, 2021). The experience of COVID-19, breakdown of social
support, loss of jobs and the stigma behind the disease has affected many people’s mental health
while others have resulted to substance abuse.
There have been a lot of tremendous disruptions owing to the COVID-19 pandemic
majority which have led to mental health problems. In the United States forty-five percent of
adults have reported experiencing stress and anxiety and the number is likely to increase as the
pandemic continues to spread. Most of these individuals have reported their anxiety to be as a
result of isolation, loss of family members, and the fear of losing income. Those with extreme
cases of anxiety and depression have ended up being diagnosed with mental disorders and other
related conditions. Besides, the results of the Covid-19 pandemic have contributed to an increase
in alcohol intake and drug use among majority of the adult population in the United States.
Focusing on the United Kingdom, approximately thirty-three percent of the residents Have
said to experience anxiety since the beginning of the pandemic. From this figure, it is apparent
that the United Kingdom is the most affected by the pandemic in terms of anxiety and
depression. Anxiety has been contributed by the restrictions put in place by the government to
curb further spread of the virus. While this is the current condition in the United Kingdom,
researchers have predicted widespread lockdown in the months to come. During the early stages
of lockdown and restrictions in movement, at least 57% of the population showed anxiety.
Majority of the residents most affected by the pandemic are those susceptible to the virus among
them children and adults.
Other than the United States and the United Kingdom, majority of the young adults across
the globe have experienced closure of schools and loss of jobs resulting to poor mental health.
The closure of schools and loss of jobs have had a great impact on both the social and economic
cost of people across the globe. The most affected people are those coming from the most
vulnerable and marginalized communities. Schools are meant to provide essential learning to
students, an opportunity that they miss out because of school closure. School going children have
been meant to feel as if they are deprived of the opportunity to learn, grow, and develop. Most of
the underprivileged learners have ended up with anxiety and depression because they are
uncertain of their education. On the other hand, millions of people have lost their job as a result
of the COVID-19 19 pandemic. A lot of companies and industries have laid down their personnel
in the bid to control the spread of the virus. Most people how have lost their jobs are now unable
to feed their families and have ended up with depression and other mental disorders. Moreover,
People of color- for instance the Hispanic and Latinos have suffered the effects of the pandemic
and accessing mental health services have become a challenge. (Pfefferbaum and North, 2020)
Furthermore, different nations have experienced economic downturns and hence lacking
enough resources to sustain the country. Prior to the occurrence of the pandemic, most countries
had stable economies and enough resources to sustain themselves. This was because there were
no trade restrictions and restrictions of movements of either people or goods. This meant that
countries that depend on imports had to experience limited access to resources. The pandemic
has resulted to insufficient domestic revenues and external flow to developing nations.
Noteworthy, the pandemic has created a major setback in financing both developed and
developing countries in terms of sustainable development. It has reached a point where domestic
resource mobilization is suffering because of reduced economic activities globally (Yao, 2020).
Lastly, the professionals working on the front line are putting their lives at risk in the bid to save
the world. Workers such as police forces, nurses, airport personnel, and others are at a high risk
of contracting or worse succumbing from the effects of COVID-19.
In the wake of widespread unemployment, deaths, loss of income, and closure of schools,
reports surfaced about an increase in substance use across the globe. All this was not expected to
happen meaning that most people had not prepared both financially and emotionally for this
period. Months into the pandemic, millions of people had lost their jobs and their movement was
restricted. These conditions led to anxiety and depression among the population. As a result,
most adults started taking alcohol and other controlled substance in the bid to avoid the reality.
Moreover, with government enacting lockdown in most countries the economic status was
affected greatly and most business could not retain their workers hence most individual were
sacked or retrenched from their jobs. It was impossible for companies to retain their employees
while at the same time abide by the restriction guidelines. Therefore, they had to lay off
thousands of employees who were rendered jobless. With joblessness comes depression followed
by abuse of drugs. With families to feed, bills to take care of and no income coming in, most
individuals resulted to abuse of drugs as a way to occupy their minds and not face the reality that
was happening (Panchal et al, 2020).
Most individuals that turned to substance abuse after the pandemic have had to deal with
loss of property due to lack of funds to finance mortgages, family breakup and loss of jobs.
Apparently, people get indulged more and more with the increase in stress levels. After a long
period of abusing drugs and taking too much alcohol, it becomes difficult to manage (Yao,
2020). Looking back one year since the start of the pandemic, the number of people who abuse
drugs has increased. There are some who barely abused drugs before the onset of the pandemic,
but are not addicted to hard substances such as heroin.
In sum, the Corona virus pandemic has affected people’s mental health besides increasing
drug use among adults. Prior to the pandemic, this was not the case since everything was normal.
However, the pandemic led to loss of jobs, closure of schools, loss of income, and loss of family
members. These and more situations caused anxiety and depression among individuals. Some of
them ended u suffering from mental disorders while others have ended up becoming drug
addicts.
References
Panchal, N., Kamal, R., Orgera, K., Cox, C., Garfield, R., Hamel, L., & Chidambaram, P. (2020).
The implications of COVID-19 for mental health and substance use. Kaiser family
foundation.
Pfefferbaum, B., & North, C. S. (2020). Mental health and the Covid-19 pandemic. New England
Journal of Medicine, 383(6), 510-512.
Shroff, D. M. & Becker, S. P. (2021). Prospective impact of COVID-19 on mental health
functioning in adolescents with and without ADHD: protective role of emotion regulation
abilities. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry
Yao, H., Chen, J. H., & Xu, Y. F. (2020). Patients with mental health disorders in the COVID-19
epidemic.
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