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Anxiety symptoms and preventive measures during the COVID-19 outbreak in Taiwan
BACKGROUND: It is hypothesized that anxiety and behavioral responses are intense at the beginning of an epidemic. The objective of this study was to investigate anxiety symptoms and use of preventive measures against COVID-19. The study also compared the association between preventive measures and a...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7364127/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32677926 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12888-020-02786-8 |
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author | Wong, Li Ping Hung, Chia-Chun Alias, Haridah Lee, Tony Szu-Hsien |
author_facet | Wong, Li Ping Hung, Chia-Chun Alias, Haridah Lee, Tony Szu-Hsien |
author_sort | Wong, Li Ping |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: It is hypothesized that anxiety and behavioral responses are intense at the beginning of an epidemic. The objective of this study was to investigate anxiety symptoms and use of preventive measures against COVID-19. The study also compared the association between preventive measures and anxiety symptoms during the week immediately preceding the study and those symptoms and measures at the beginning of the outbreak. METHODS: A cross-sectional population survey using an online questionnaire commenced on 14 February 2020. The study participants were residents of Taiwan ages 20 to 70 years. The 6-item state version of the State–Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-6) was used to assess anxiety symptoms. The questions about preventive measures asked participants about their personal protection, cough etiquette, contact precautions, voluntary quarantine, and prompt reporting. Multivariable logistic regression was used to determine the factors influencing an increase in the preventive measures scores. RESULTS: Of a total of 3555 completed responses, a total of 52.1% (95% confidence interval [CI] 50.4–53.7) of the respondents reported moderate to severe levels of anxiety symptoms in the past week, whereas 48.8% (95%CI 47.2–50.5) reported moderate to severe anxiety symptoms at the beginning of the outbreak. With a higher score indicating greater anxiety, the median scores for anxiety symptoms in the past week and at the beginning of the outbreak were 46.7 (IQR [interquartile range] 36.7–53.3) and 43.3 (IQR 36.7–53.3), respectively. The median scores for the preventive measures taken in the past week and at the beginning of the outbreak were 26.0 (IQR 21.0–30.0) and 24.0 (IQR 19.0–28.0), respectively, out of a maximum score of 36. In the multivariable analysis, an increased anxiety symptom score from the beginning of the outbreak to the past week (adjusted OR = 7.38, 95%CI 6.28–8.66) was a strongly significant determinant of an increased preventive measures score in the past week compared with the score at the beginning of the outbreak. CONCLUSIONS: Anxiety and preventive measures scores were high and increased with the epidemic rate. Higher anxiety was associated with an increased use of preventive measures against COVID-19. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7364127 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-73641272020-07-16 Anxiety symptoms and preventive measures during the COVID-19 outbreak in Taiwan Wong, Li Ping Hung, Chia-Chun Alias, Haridah Lee, Tony Szu-Hsien BMC Psychiatry Research Article BACKGROUND: It is hypothesized that anxiety and behavioral responses are intense at the beginning of an epidemic. The objective of this study was to investigate anxiety symptoms and use of preventive measures against COVID-19. The study also compared the association between preventive measures and anxiety symptoms during the week immediately preceding the study and those symptoms and measures at the beginning of the outbreak. METHODS: A cross-sectional population survey using an online questionnaire commenced on 14 February 2020. The study participants were residents of Taiwan ages 20 to 70 years. The 6-item state version of the State–Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-6) was used to assess anxiety symptoms. The questions about preventive measures asked participants about their personal protection, cough etiquette, contact precautions, voluntary quarantine, and prompt reporting. Multivariable logistic regression was used to determine the factors influencing an increase in the preventive measures scores. RESULTS: Of a total of 3555 completed responses, a total of 52.1% (95% confidence interval [CI] 50.4–53.7) of the respondents reported moderate to severe levels of anxiety symptoms in the past week, whereas 48.8% (95%CI 47.2–50.5) reported moderate to severe anxiety symptoms at the beginning of the outbreak. With a higher score indicating greater anxiety, the median scores for anxiety symptoms in the past week and at the beginning of the outbreak were 46.7 (IQR [interquartile range] 36.7–53.3) and 43.3 (IQR 36.7–53.3), respectively. The median scores for the preventive measures taken in the past week and at the beginning of the outbreak were 26.0 (IQR 21.0–30.0) and 24.0 (IQR 19.0–28.0), respectively, out of a maximum score of 36. In the multivariable analysis, an increased anxiety symptom score from the beginning of the outbreak to the past week (adjusted OR = 7.38, 95%CI 6.28–8.66) was a strongly significant determinant of an increased preventive measures score in the past week compared with the score at the beginning of the outbreak. CONCLUSIONS: Anxiety and preventive measures scores were high and increased with the epidemic rate. Higher anxiety was associated with an increased use of preventive measures against COVID-19. BioMed Central 2020-07-16 /pmc/articles/PMC7364127/ /pubmed/32677926 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12888-020-02786-8 Text en © The Author(s) 2020 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Wong, Li Ping Hung, Chia-Chun Alias, Haridah Lee, Tony Szu-Hsien Anxiety symptoms and preventive measures during the COVID-19 outbreak in Taiwan |
title | Anxiety symptoms and preventive measures during the COVID-19 outbreak in Taiwan |
title_full | Anxiety symptoms and preventive measures during the COVID-19 outbreak in Taiwan |
title_fullStr | Anxiety symptoms and preventive measures during the COVID-19 outbreak in Taiwan |
title_full_unstemmed | Anxiety symptoms and preventive measures during the COVID-19 outbreak in Taiwan |
title_short | Anxiety symptoms and preventive measures during the COVID-19 outbreak in Taiwan |
title_sort | anxiety symptoms and preventive measures during the covid-19 outbreak in taiwan |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7364127/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32677926 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12888-020-02786-8 |
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