Groundwater Arsenic Contamination in the Indo-Gangetic Plain: A Major Environmental Issue for Stress, Anxiety, and Depression

Background Human beings have always been exposed to environmental hazardsHazards like polluted air, water, and soil through many micropollutants and heavy metals. These and many other exposures persist today and even increasing day by day due to industrialization and globalization. Several kinds of micropollutants (like arsenic, lead, mercury, cadmium, etc.) affect human physical as well as psychological health. Groundwater arsenic contaminationGroundwater arsenic contamination is a major environmental issue and a major public health concern throughout the Indo-Gangetic plain. The situation is worst in the state of Bihar, where 22 out of 38 districts are affected by arsenic and cancer is the most prevalent disease in this area. Unfortunately, the psychological consequences of groundwater. As contamination is scantly studied and found in the literature. Objective To explore the arsenic menace in the middle Indo-Gangetic plain from a psychological perspective and assess the level of stressStress, anxietyAnxiety, and depressionDepression of arsenic-induced cancerArsenic-induced cancer patients. Design Correlational survey research. Sample Through the purposive sampling method, 267 participants (age ranges from 32 to 60 years) were taken from Bihar. Eighty-nine (89) cancer patients were from non-arsenic-affected regions, 89 arsenic-induced cancerArsenic-induced cancer patients were from arsenic-affected middle Gangetic region, and rest 89 healthy counterparts were from non-arsenic-affected districts of Bihar. Method Hindi-adapted version of a self-report measure of depressionDepression, anxietyAnxiety, and stressStress scale was used to evaluate the level of three emotional states. Quantitative data analysis was carried out with descriptive statistics (SD and mean) and inferential statistics (Tukey and one-way ANOVA). Results The three groups were significantly different on stressStress (F = 61.048, p < 0.001), anxietyAnxiety (F = 45.701, p < 0.001), and depressionDepression (F = 40.851, p < 0.001). The Tukey test shows that stressStress and depressionDepression were comparatively higher in the arsenic-induced cancerArsenic-induced cancer patients as compared to the other two counterparts. Conclusion Arsenic-induced cancerArsenic-induced cancer patients undergo comparatively greater levels of anxietyAnxiety and stressStress and thus warrant constructive attention from the service providers and policymakers toward this end. Implications Baseline findings for reporting unfortunate psychological outcomes of arsenic-induced cancerArsenic-induced cancer and so for, exposure to high As concentrated groundwater. In addition, a call to action has been made for academics, researchers, social workers, and policymakers to plan and promote psychological interventions for good health and well-being.