ADVERSE IMPACT OF LOCKDOWN ON INDIAN SOCIAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL BEHAVIOUR-A REVIEW JYOTI AGRAWAL 1* , ABHILASHA SAVALE 2 , BHAVANA SHAKYAWAR 3 , PRABINA YADAV 4 , PRERANA SIKARWAR 5 , SHWETA SHARMA 6 1 Department of Botany, Government College Umarban-454449, Dhar (M.P.) India 2 Department of Library, Government College Umarban-454449, Dhar (M.P.) India 3 Department of Sociology, Government College Unhel-456221, Ujjain (M.P.) India 4 Department of History, Government College Umarban-454449, Dhar (M.P.) India 5 Department of Sociology, Government College Umarban-454449, Dhar (M.P.) India 6 Nirvindhya College, Biaora-465674, Rajgarh (M.P.) India * Email: jyotiagrawal111@rediffmail.com Received: 30 May 2021, Revised and Accepted: 7 July 2021 ABSTRACT Due to high infectivity and death rates, the novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) disease has caused worldwide social and psychological impact by causing mass hysteria, economic burden, and feelings of aloneness during illness and financial losses. Studies have identified “coronaphobia” as a byproduct of the pandemic, where people have an extreme terror of contracting the virus. Mass fear of COVID-19 has created an overabundance of psychiatric manifestations across almost all strata of society. In this review, the psycho-social impacts of COVID-19 have been studied. As a data source Pubmed and Google Scholar are searched with the following key terms- “COVID-19 and social impact,” “SARS-CoV2 and social effects,” “social impact of current Pandemic,” “Psychological impact of COVID-19,” “Psycho-social effects and Coronavirus.” Many current published data and news were extracted that provide significant data. Our study revealed that nationwide lockdowns and forced quarantine to fight against COVID-19 had produced acute panic, anxiety, obsessive behaviors, domestic abuse, hoarding, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and food insecurity, including marked impairment in daily life functioning. The psycho-social aspects of older people, their caregivers, psychiatric patients and marginalized communities are badly affected in different ways and need special attention. From the present work, it can be concluded that there is an urgent need to find out effective ways to treat people and bring them out of fear and stress. As these symptoms are seen in large population sizes, we also need to study the long-term effects of these adverse effects on the mass level. Keywords: COVID-19, Social impact, Psychological effects, Anxiety, Food insecurity, Nationwide lockdowns. © 2021 The Authors. Published by Innovare Academic Sciences Pvt Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.22159/ijoe.2021v9i5.42235. Journal homepage: https://innovareacademics.in/journals/index.php/ijoe INTRODUCTION In the whole world, a big crisis is spreading due to the novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19). A huge number of people have been infected and died in the past one and a half years (Saha, Barman, & Chouhan, 2020). Both governmental and non- governmental organizations are working to prevent the dispersal of infection. Several measures like lockdown, social distancing, closure of schools, colleges, institutions, religious gatherings, family functions, etc., have been undertaken to reduce cases across the world, including India (Agrawal, 2021). Although all these measures are obligatory to stop the COVID- 19 disease, the same also has been responsible for a number of harmful impacts, especially in developing countries like India (Agrawal, 2021; Khattar, Jain, & Quadri, 2020). In India, the lockdown has affected a massive population. Most of the lower and middle-income people are affected badly and they are struggling for their own and family health, food, essential commodities and family members etc. (Khattar et al., 2020). The feelings of loneliness, isolation, insecurity for careers, loss of jobs, economic burden, stayed away from family, etc., made people so much helpless (Agrawal, 2021; Khattar et al., 2020; Nilima, Kaushik, Tiwary, & Pandey, 2021). In addition to this, the fear of infection, fear of unavailability of health care, fear of isolation, fear of loss of the family person, and at the utmost the fear of death has made the public crazy (Luo, Chua, Xiong, Ho, & Ho, 2020). In different studies, a number of neglected or un-approached social and psychological factors related to people due to the present pandemic were investigated in all over the world. In this review article, we have tried to summarize and put a clear understanding of the psycho-social scenario, during and after lockdown, in India (Luo et al., 2020; Nilima et al., 2021). The outcomes of the present work may help the government and disaster management teams for better management and prevention of the disease along with the real-time issues of the public. Socio-psychological effects of lockdown In India, a wide population is primarily restricted to their homes, owing to lockdowns. Due to a long lockdown and unpredictable, fast-spreading of infectious disease, a universal awareness, acute anxiety and distress are natural psychological responses (Armitage & Nellums, 2020). However, adverse psychosomatic outcomes among common people are expected to increase significantly due to the pandemic itself and, of course, continuous flow of readily available information and armored messaging obtained via online social networking services of almost all forms (Armitage & Nellums, 2020; Luo et al., 2020; Nilima et al., 2021). These informations played a great role to intensify the fear of the virus, along with the awful cases constantly happening in the different parts of state and nation and even in the world (Nilima et al., 2021). It is observed that such things build an image in the mind of man that also generates adverse situations at the psychological level. A number of recent studies revealed the rapid expansion of mass hysteria and panic regarding COVID-19 in public (Armitage & Nellums, 2020; Luo et al., 2020). Nervousness due to uncertainty about COVID-19 positive patient’s health status and develop obsessive-compulsive symptoms, such as repeated temperature checks, constant coughing, uneasiness, loss of taste, headache and sometimes vomit, loss motion, etc. are seen to be positive correlated with the degree of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Vol 9, Issue 5, 2021 ISSN: 2347-5528 Review Article