Ahmedabad displayed lowest mental well-being at 25 per cent followed by Chennai at 28 per cent, Kolkata, facing dual crises of COVID-19 and Amphan is at 29 per cent MWBI
Mental well-being is measured as a person’s ability to cope with various worries they may encounter. It is the sum of the cognitive, behavioural, emotional and spiritual well-being of a person. Worries may be real or imagined, but the easiest way to explain worry is as ‘advancement of anxiety’. Coping counterbalances worry, and it is a person’s ability to deal with responsibilities, problems, or difficulties successfully or in an adequate manner. During a serious and continued crisis like the current lockdown, the coping ability may increase or decrease against worries depending on several personal and environmental factors. The first edition of TRA’s whitepaper Coronavirus Consumer Insights – 1 was published on April 24, 2020. This whitepaper compares the change mental well-being of citizens from Lockdown 1.0 to Lockdown 3.0.
N Chandramouli, CEO, TRA Research said, “Delhi (NCR) citizens display an ‘Outstanding’ rating in the Mental Well-being Index, with the citizenry’s coping skills bettering their worries. Guwahati at 89 per cent MWBI and Hyderabad at 82 per cent MWBI both display ‘Excellent’ mental well-being. Indore displays an unchanged MWBI score at 76 per cent and continues to display ‘Good’ mental well-being.”
Ahmedabad displays the lowest mental well-being at 25 per cent followed by Chennai at 28 per cent and Kolkata, facing the dual crises of COVID-19 and Amphan is at 29 per cent MWBI. Along with these cities, Nagpur (36 per cent), Kochi (37 per cent) and Coimbatore (39 per cent) also display ‘Very Poor’ mental well-being, added Chandramouli.
Dr Jalpa Bhuta, Consultant Psychiatrist, Global Hospital and Hinduja Khar, observed, “The study shows that cities like Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai are not coping too well as compared to most others and combined health and economic anxieties are more prominent in these cities. It is important for authorities to invest in more detailed studies of citizens’ mental well-being to address these issues. Mental health is as important as physical and economic well-being, but being a silent problem, it often gets overlooked. The need of the hour for everyone is to keep a positive attitude, high resilience and a strong spiritual faith, all of which contribute to coping ability and mental well-being.”
Four cities showed improved mental well-being between Lockdown 1.0 and Lockdown 3.0. Delhi (NCR) was leading and the city displays outstanding mental well-being at 107 per cent with coping higher than worry. The city also shows the highest rise in Mental Well-being Index (rise of 44 per cent) from Lockdown 1.0. Lucknow showed a 27 per cent improvement in the Mental Well-being Index to now display Good on the MWBI scale. Mumbai has a rise in MWBI of 26 per cent, though still at a Poor on the MWBI metric. Hyderabad is the only other city where Mental Well-being Index has shown a rise of 18 per cent, rising from Good to Excellent mental well-being. All other cities either did not show any change in the MWBI or showed a decrease in mental well-being.
The City Mental Well-being heat-map shows the data in a different format, clearly showing the deterioration of mental well-being in a majority of the cities with significant exceptions as stated in the above paragraph (Green indicates better MWBI, and colour changes progressively toward Red showing worse MWBI).