The financial worry among the Delhi residents was 61 per cent, revealed a recent whitepaper released by TRA Research, a consumer insights and brand analytics company, on the mental well-being of citizens across urban India during lockdown. The survey had 1,804 respondents across 16 cities between March 23 and May 21, measuring health, economy, family and financial worry of citizens and their coping ability.
TRA Research CEO N Chandramouli said the report indicated that mental well-being impacts coping, effectiveness, relationships, performance, mood, emotional balance, and physical health. “COVID-19 has caused a lot of stresses, but some of them are unseen.
Measuring mental well-being is the most important indicator of how people, cities and countries get impacted when faced with such a severe crisis, and how they emerge in its wake.” While the report showed Delhilites concern for their family was 38 per cent and for their health was 53 per cent, the overall Mental Wellbeing Index (MWBI) showed that citizens of Delhi (NCR) displayed the highest mental strength at 95 per cent in their ability to cope with their anxieties concerning the COVID spread.
“It will be incorrect to conclude that Delhites do not care about the family. The human mind has only limited capacity to deal with worry and it prioritises according to each person’s situation. It is just that in the current crisis, the Delhiites were more worried about financial risk, and their family, health and other worries got relegated to the background,” adds Chandramouli. The questionnaires were filled telephonically by qualified TRA fieldwork personnel.
“But the percentages are not interdependent and are a scale. The actual scores (MWBI) have been calculated as the Coping Index/Worry Index. While the worries across the cities were noticed to be constant, the ability to cope with these worries depends on the state government’s ability, communication with the people, and the general attitudes of the citizens,” adds Chandramouli.