Impacts Médicopsychologiques Du Confinement Vus Chez Les Etudiants Universitaires d’Ankatso A Antananarivo

Abstract

Introduction: Madagascar is one of the countries affected by the global pandemic due to the coronavirus. Few data reflect the medico-psychological disorders linked to the lockdown’s period in the country. Our objective was to describe the prevalence of psychiatric disorders among young students during the lockdown’s period.

Methods: This descriptive prospective study was carried out from April 05, 2020 to July 05, 2020 during the lockdown’s period on students without a psychiatric history, living at the university residence of Ankatso in Antananarivo. Internationally valid questionary has been used for the assessment of psychiatric disorders.

Results: One hundred and eighty-two students participated in this study with a female predominance at 58.80%. The average age was 22.02 years (extreme 17 to 26 years). The students were single and had an harmonious family relationship. The students were in apparent good health in 85.16% of cases and 14.84% had asthma. Stress was observed in 36.61% of cases, predominant in the female gender (p = 0.011) and in asthmatics (p <0.05). Anxiety was observed in 26.92% of cases with a predominance in female gender (p = 0.035) and half of the students with asthma were affected (p <0.05). The depressive syndrom was present in 14.83% of the subjects surveyed. For sleep disorder, it was present in 45.60% of the students surveyed and students with asthma are particularly concerned (p = 0.00028).

Conclusion: Despite being limited to a student population, our study provided insight into the medico-psychological impacts of lockdown’s period due to the coronavirus pandemic in a Malagasy context.