Psychological Impact Assessment of Covid-19 on Migrants in Jammu City and Peripheral Area, Jammu and Kashmir, India

Introduction: In Indian economy, the internal migrants are the major role player in the informal sector. During Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown millions of internal migrants were severely affected. Migrants are more prone to social, economic, and psychological issues. It is quite relevant to know the impact of Covid-19 on the psychological health of migrants. The fear of starvation, fear of not being able to meet their family members, fear of getting infected, fear of death, loss of wages were the main psychological problems they faced. This paper focuses on the psychological assessment of impact of Covid-19 on migrants in the Jammu city and its peripheral areas, Union Territory Jammu & Kashmir, India. Methodology: Data is collected by personal interview method with the help of questionnaire. For analyzing the psychological impacts of Covid-19 on migrants, we used Patient Health Questionnaire-2 and Patient Health Questionnaire-9. 100 persons are surveyed during the study. Results: 69 percent respondent reflected that they had fear of death during pandemic period. Most of the respondent said that they were feeling nervous, helpless for not being able to attend the health needs of family even they were not able to concentrate properly and had little interest in doing things. Conclusion: the outcome of the study shows that more than half of the respondents are dealing with the psychological issues, thus along with looking at the physical needs there is need of taking care of mental health is also especially in the time of the pandemic.