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The immediate psychological response of the general population in Saudi Arabia during COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: The outbreak of COVID-19 may differentially exacerbate anxiety and stress in people subjected to the real or perceived threat of the virus. METHOD: An online cross-sectional survey was carried out to assess the general population’s psychological response during the initial state of the o...

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Autores principales: Joseph, Royes, Lucca, Jisha M., Alshayban, Dhfer, Alshehry, Yasir A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7857075/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33548660
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jiph.2020.11.017
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author Joseph, Royes
Lucca, Jisha M.
Alshayban, Dhfer
Alshehry, Yasir A.
author_facet Joseph, Royes
Lucca, Jisha M.
Alshayban, Dhfer
Alshehry, Yasir A.
author_sort Joseph, Royes
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The outbreak of COVID-19 may differentially exacerbate anxiety and stress in people subjected to the real or perceived threat of the virus. METHOD: An online cross-sectional survey was carried out to assess the general population’s psychological response during the initial state of the outbreak in Saudi Arabia. The study used brief screening tools PHQ-4 for anxiety-depression symptoms and IES-6 for posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms. RESULTS: Among the 584 respondents, 19.8% and 22.0% reported moderate to severe anxiety and depression symptoms respectively. According to the combined PHQ-4 score, 14.5% of participants showed moderate to severe anxiety or depression disorder. Overall, 64.8% met the level of clinical concern for posttraumatic stress disorder and 51.3% met the level of probable posttraumatic stress disorder diagnosis. Multivariate analyses showed that females, non-Saudi nationalities, and those who had a history of mental illness were more vulnerable to anxiety and depression disorders than their counterparts, whereas a higher prevalence of distress symptoms was reported among those who prefer Arabic over English for communication. It was found that people whose colleagues or family infected with the disease were more likely to report moderate to severe symptoms of anxiety or depression and distress. The study further showed that the higher the perceived threat, the higher the chances of exhibiting anxiety-depressive disorder symptoms and distress symptoms. CONCLUSION: The findings might be a matter for serious concern, and considerable attention is required from authorities and policymakers regarding early detection and treatment of these illnesses in order to reduce the burden of the pandemic related mental illness.
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spelling pubmed-78570752021-02-04 The immediate psychological response of the general population in Saudi Arabia during COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-sectional study Joseph, Royes Lucca, Jisha M. Alshayban, Dhfer Alshehry, Yasir A. J Infect Public Health Article BACKGROUND: The outbreak of COVID-19 may differentially exacerbate anxiety and stress in people subjected to the real or perceived threat of the virus. METHOD: An online cross-sectional survey was carried out to assess the general population’s psychological response during the initial state of the outbreak in Saudi Arabia. The study used brief screening tools PHQ-4 for anxiety-depression symptoms and IES-6 for posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms. RESULTS: Among the 584 respondents, 19.8% and 22.0% reported moderate to severe anxiety and depression symptoms respectively. According to the combined PHQ-4 score, 14.5% of participants showed moderate to severe anxiety or depression disorder. Overall, 64.8% met the level of clinical concern for posttraumatic stress disorder and 51.3% met the level of probable posttraumatic stress disorder diagnosis. Multivariate analyses showed that females, non-Saudi nationalities, and those who had a history of mental illness were more vulnerable to anxiety and depression disorders than their counterparts, whereas a higher prevalence of distress symptoms was reported among those who prefer Arabic over English for communication. It was found that people whose colleagues or family infected with the disease were more likely to report moderate to severe symptoms of anxiety or depression and distress. The study further showed that the higher the perceived threat, the higher the chances of exhibiting anxiety-depressive disorder symptoms and distress symptoms. CONCLUSION: The findings might be a matter for serious concern, and considerable attention is required from authorities and policymakers regarding early detection and treatment of these illnesses in order to reduce the burden of the pandemic related mental illness. The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences. 2021-02 2021-02-03 /pmc/articles/PMC7857075/ /pubmed/33548660 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jiph.2020.11.017 Text en © 2020 The Authors Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active.
spellingShingle Article
Joseph, Royes
Lucca, Jisha M.
Alshayban, Dhfer
Alshehry, Yasir A.
The immediate psychological response of the general population in Saudi Arabia during COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-sectional study
title The immediate psychological response of the general population in Saudi Arabia during COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-sectional study
title_full The immediate psychological response of the general population in Saudi Arabia during COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-sectional study
title_fullStr The immediate psychological response of the general population in Saudi Arabia during COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-sectional study
title_full_unstemmed The immediate psychological response of the general population in Saudi Arabia during COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-sectional study
title_short The immediate psychological response of the general population in Saudi Arabia during COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-sectional study
title_sort immediate psychological response of the general population in saudi arabia during covid-19 pandemic: a cross-sectional study
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7857075/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33548660
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jiph.2020.11.017
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