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The psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on adults and children in the United Arab Emirates: a nationwide cross-sectional study
BACKGROUND: The psychosocial impact of previous infectious disease outbreaks in adults has been well documented, however, there is limited information on the mental health impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on adults and children in the United Arab Emirate (UAE) community. The aim of this study was to...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8090921/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33941119 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12888-021-03213-2 |
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author | Saddik, Basema Hussein, Amal Albanna, Ammar Elbarazi, Iffat Al-Shujairi, Arwa Temsah, Mohamad-Hani Saheb Sharif-Askari, Fatemeh Stip, Emmanuel Hamid, Qutayba Halwani, Rabih |
author_facet | Saddik, Basema Hussein, Amal Albanna, Ammar Elbarazi, Iffat Al-Shujairi, Arwa Temsah, Mohamad-Hani Saheb Sharif-Askari, Fatemeh Stip, Emmanuel Hamid, Qutayba Halwani, Rabih |
author_sort | Saddik, Basema |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: The psychosocial impact of previous infectious disease outbreaks in adults has been well documented, however, there is limited information on the mental health impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on adults and children in the United Arab Emirate (UAE) community. The aim of this study was to explore anxiety levels among adults and children in the UAE and to identify potential risk and protective factors for well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: Using a web-based cross-sectional survey we collected data from 2200 self-selected, assessed volunteers and their children. Demographic information, knowledge and beliefs about COVID-19, generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) using the (GAD-7) scale, emotional problems in children using the strengths and difficulties questionnaire (SDQ), worry and fear about COVID-19, coping mechanisms and general health information were collected. Descriptive analysis was carried out to summarize demographic and participant characteristics, Chi-square analysis to explore associations between categorical variables and anxiety levels and multivariable binary logistic regression analysis to determine predictors of anxiety levels in adults and emotional problems in children. RESULTS: The overall prevalence of GAD in the general population was 71% with younger people (59.8%) and females (51.7%) reporting highest levels of anxiety. Parents who were teachers reported the highest percentage of emotional problems in children (26.7%). Adjusted multivariable logistic regression for GAD-7 scores showed that being female, high levels of worry associated with COVID-19, intention to take the COVID-19 vaccine and smoking were associated with higher levels of anxiety. Adjusted multivariable logistic regression for SDQ showed that higher emotional problems were reported for children in lower and higher secondary education, and parents who had severe anxiety were seven times more likely to report emotional problems in their children. CONCLUSIONS: This study reports the psychological impact of COVID-19 among adults and children in the UAE and highlights the significant association between parental and child anxiety. Findings suggest the urgency for policy makers to develop effective screening and coping strategies for parents and especially children. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12888-021-03213-2. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8090921 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-80909212021-05-03 The psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on adults and children in the United Arab Emirates: a nationwide cross-sectional study Saddik, Basema Hussein, Amal Albanna, Ammar Elbarazi, Iffat Al-Shujairi, Arwa Temsah, Mohamad-Hani Saheb Sharif-Askari, Fatemeh Stip, Emmanuel Hamid, Qutayba Halwani, Rabih BMC Psychiatry Research Article BACKGROUND: The psychosocial impact of previous infectious disease outbreaks in adults has been well documented, however, there is limited information on the mental health impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on adults and children in the United Arab Emirate (UAE) community. The aim of this study was to explore anxiety levels among adults and children in the UAE and to identify potential risk and protective factors for well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: Using a web-based cross-sectional survey we collected data from 2200 self-selected, assessed volunteers and their children. Demographic information, knowledge and beliefs about COVID-19, generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) using the (GAD-7) scale, emotional problems in children using the strengths and difficulties questionnaire (SDQ), worry and fear about COVID-19, coping mechanisms and general health information were collected. Descriptive analysis was carried out to summarize demographic and participant characteristics, Chi-square analysis to explore associations between categorical variables and anxiety levels and multivariable binary logistic regression analysis to determine predictors of anxiety levels in adults and emotional problems in children. RESULTS: The overall prevalence of GAD in the general population was 71% with younger people (59.8%) and females (51.7%) reporting highest levels of anxiety. Parents who were teachers reported the highest percentage of emotional problems in children (26.7%). Adjusted multivariable logistic regression for GAD-7 scores showed that being female, high levels of worry associated with COVID-19, intention to take the COVID-19 vaccine and smoking were associated with higher levels of anxiety. Adjusted multivariable logistic regression for SDQ showed that higher emotional problems were reported for children in lower and higher secondary education, and parents who had severe anxiety were seven times more likely to report emotional problems in their children. CONCLUSIONS: This study reports the psychological impact of COVID-19 among adults and children in the UAE and highlights the significant association between parental and child anxiety. Findings suggest the urgency for policy makers to develop effective screening and coping strategies for parents and especially children. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12888-021-03213-2. BioMed Central 2021-05-03 /pmc/articles/PMC8090921/ /pubmed/33941119 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12888-021-03213-2 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/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/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://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 Saddik, Basema Hussein, Amal Albanna, Ammar Elbarazi, Iffat Al-Shujairi, Arwa Temsah, Mohamad-Hani Saheb Sharif-Askari, Fatemeh Stip, Emmanuel Hamid, Qutayba Halwani, Rabih The psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on adults and children in the United Arab Emirates: a nationwide cross-sectional study |
title | The psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on adults and children in the United Arab Emirates: a nationwide cross-sectional study |
title_full | The psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on adults and children in the United Arab Emirates: a nationwide cross-sectional study |
title_fullStr | The psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on adults and children in the United Arab Emirates: a nationwide cross-sectional study |
title_full_unstemmed | The psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on adults and children in the United Arab Emirates: a nationwide cross-sectional study |
title_short | The psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on adults and children in the United Arab Emirates: a nationwide cross-sectional study |
title_sort | psychological impact of the covid-19 pandemic on adults and children in the united arab emirates: a nationwide cross-sectional study |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8090921/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33941119 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12888-021-03213-2 |
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