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CROSS SECTIONAL STUDY ON THE ASSOCIATION OF DAILY SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE ON MENTAL WELL BEING DURING COVID 19 AMONG THE AFRICAN STUDENTS IN INDIA

OBJECTIVES: The current research focussed to explore the association of daily spiritual experience on the mental wellbeing of international students hails from Africa and pursuing studies in various higher education institutions in India. The research also tried to explore whether age and gender plays a significant role in the mental wellbeing of the respondents. DESIGN: The study is an exploratory cross-sectional in nature. The research tool comprised of the Daily Spiritual Experience Scale (DSES) and Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS) along with the demographic details. Post reliability and validity tests established scales are used to study the variable in the research. The data was analysed using Smart PLS SEM 3.3.2. SETTING: The respondents comprise of international students hails from Africa and pursuing various undergraduate, post graduate and PhD courses from various institutions at Bhopal, Delhi, Mumbai and Rajasthan in India. The respondents include a cohort of 102 respondents who gave consent to be part of the study during first week of July to first week of August 2021 and were selected through purposive sampling technique. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The research measures the association of daily spiritual experience and mental wellbeing during pandemic and also the coping strategies used by the respondents. FINDINGS: The research report shows an insignificant relation of gender to the mental well-being whereas age reported a significant association. A significant association is reported between daily spiritual experience and mental wellbeing of the respondents amidst pandemic situation. CONCLUSION: Pandemic outbreaks influences the mental well-being of individuals specially when they are away from the social support system. Hence counselling services and other interventions to cater to the needs of students requires a serious deliberation at the policy level.


INTRODUCTION
Platforms. [36] A cross-sectional, nation-wide study of students in China that acute stress (34.9%), anxiety (21.1%) and depressive symptoms (11.0%) were prevalent during the pandemic. Mental health problems were related to fears of being infected and having decreased social support. [37] Using the 7-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD-7) scale it was found that 24.9% of college students experienced elevated levels of anxiety because of COVID-19's impact on their academic activities, daily lives (social distancing) and economic prospects. [38] Research on Spiritual health during COVID 19 among the higher education students showed that the following are factors regarding spiritual health of students, they are in terms of developing worship of the Creator, developing oneness with God, developing peace with God, developing joy in life, developing prayer life, developing infer peace, developing respect for others and developing kindness towards other people [35].The activities, particularly of a religious nature, made it possible to reduce the physical distances imposed by forced isolation without putting people's health at risk [8,9], helping to reduce the negative effects of isolation, particularly in older people.
[10,11] For many people, spiritual and religious practices give meaning, purpose and constitute a supportive community. [12,13] By spiritual needs we mean everything that refers to the need to find meaning, value in one's life, peace and a sense of connection. These needs are not necessarily exclusively religious, even those who do not have a religious faith still refer to belief systems that provide feelings of meaning and purpose [14] which in this period of the COVID-19 pandemic seem to assume a role and an even deeper meaning in relation to the bewilderment that people are confronted with in the face of such a pervasive, disruptive event creating fragility, fear and daily uncertainties.

OBJECTIVES
With this background the study tried to compare and find the divergence between daily spiritual experience and mental well-being among the students from African countries and mental well-being also across different age groups and gender. It tries to understand the challenges faced by the respondents and coping mechanisms adopted by them amidst this crisis situation as they are away from the family support system.

COPING STRATEGIES TAKEN TO MANAGE FEAR AND ANXIETY
The respondents shared that although counselling support was offered by the government, but they used alternative ways to manage their life in India amidst the pandemic. The respondents shared that government support was not provided to the international students from Africa in terms of supply of commodities, facilitate their travel back to native place or any enquiry to understand the needs and challenges. Nevertheless, the respondents found peace and harmony with help of peer support and maintaining interaction with family members frequently through online platform. They received help from church, family and their own community. The below given figure depicts the coping strategies used by the respondents. and closely connected to physical and mental health. [24,27,28] In this regard, the consideration of spiritual needs is necessary to provide a holistic and people-centered intervention. [29] In a certain sense it is precisely at the moment of greatest difficulty that the need for support in spiritual terms becomes stronger, in the hope of finding comfort in one's faith and beliefs. Very often, however, we are faced with inadequate preparation in responding to this type of need [30]. In fact, the importance of training health professionals so that they possess the skills to identify and support the spiritual discomfort of patients is increasingly evident. [31] A distress which can lead to suffering, a state of anguish due to not being able to feel meaning in life in particular adverse moments, which in some way undermines personal identity. [32,33] The study also explored the coping mechanisms adopted by the respondents amid the pandemic. Central

FIGURE 3 COPING MECHANISMS ADOPTED BY THE RESPONDENTS TO MANAGE COVID 19 SITUATION
Government of India had taken many initiatives to mitigate the mental health issues of general public. However, the subjects under the study did not avail those services as they had explored many other ways to lessen the fear factor Internationalization of education which is one of the foci of NEP 2020 could be materialized effectively only by taking into account the need of foreign students. Initiatives taken at the best interest of the international students may pave way for many cross-country educational initiatives. The study also recommends to conduct an exploration on diverse areas to identify the needs and problems of students hail from other countries.