Abstract

Background: The psychological impacts of the corona virus-19( COVID-19) pandemic in East Africa, particularly in countries like Ethiopia still devastated by the social and political instability, the inadequacy of vaccines for the larger segment of the population accompanied by uprising death rate. Therefore, our study aimed to investigate the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and its correlate among residents of the Ilu Abba Bor and Buno Bedelle zones, Southwest Ethiopia during the second wave of the pandemic. Methods: A community-based cross-sectional study design was employed to collect data by interviewer-administered pre-tested semi-structured questionnaire from 663 households. Data entry was done by Epi-data version 3.1 and analyzed by SPSS version 24.0 statistical software applications. The strength of association between variables was assessed using crude and adjusted odds ratio by running logistic regression and P-value <0.05 or 95% confidence interval for declaring the cutoff point or statistical significance. Result: The response rate of the study was 97.5%. About one-fourth of the respondents reported moderate-to-severe psychological impact. Self-employment and use of Khat (amphetamine-like stimulants) in the past three months was associated with the psychological impacts of the respondents. Conclusion and recommendation: The current psychological impacts of the residents were compared with the preliminary wave of the pandemic suggests a decreased level of the effects. However, a substantial proportion of psychological impact was reported among residents during the second wave of the pandemic.