Stigma Perception of Survivorsin Early Phase of COVID-19Pandemic

The stigma of COVID-19 has a widespread distribution including healthcare providers, patients of COVID-19, family members and friends of such patients and has steeped its way to post COVID-19 infection as well into COVID-19 survivors.A cross-sectional study with COVID-19 survivors aged 18 and above was conducted at a dedicated COVID-19 facility in northern India.As there is no validated measure of COVID-19-related stigma, a revised Berger's scale was used to assess the stigma faced by COVID-19 patients.A total of 500 COVID-19 survivors were included in the study.Mean total stigma in participants was 8.35 (7.43), the responses of perceived external stigma in terms of fear of people with history of COVID-19 was highest with mean score of 1.5 (1.4), followed by getting hurt with people's reaction on knowledge of COVID-19 under enacted stigma with mean score of 1.22 (1.39).Collaborative effort of community, healthcare workers, administrators and other supportive departments together with strong political commitment is the foundation of dealing with crisis like a pandemic.