Prevalence and factors associated with depression, anxiety, and stress among people with disabilities during COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh: A cross-sectional study

A cross-sectional study was conducted with 391 people with disabilities in Bangladesh between December 2020 and February 2021. The study used the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS-21) and interviews to assess mental health prevalence and associated factors. Results indicated high prevalence: 65.7% for depression, 78.5% for anxiety, and 61.4% for stress. Factors associated with these mental health issues included male gender, being married, low education, multiple impairments, comorbid illnesses, poor sleep, rural residency, hearing disability, later disability onset, and a positive COVID-19 test. The study's limitations include its cross-sectional design, which precludes establishing causality, the use of convenience sampling which may limit generalizability, and the lack of pre-pandemic data to attribute the findings solely to the pandemic.