Abstract
Objectives:Our study aimed to determine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on psychological responses and lifestyle changes among the general population in mainland China following the re-opening of the Wuhan city.Methods:A cross-sectional survey was conducted in April 2020. Participants of Chinese nationality aged ⩾ 18 years were asked to complete a modified validated Chinese version of a questionnaire regarding the impact of event scale (IES), family and social support, mental health–related lifestyle changes, and indicators of negative mental health impacts.Results:A total of 728 participants (i.e., 217 males and 511 females) completed the questionnaire. The mean age of the participants was 32.9 ± 10.4 years, with a majority of them (92.2%) having a higher educational qualification level. The overall mean IES in participants was 21.5 ± 7.0, reflecting mild stressful impact (i.e., following the re-opening of the Wuhan city); 25.5% of the participants had an IES score ⩾ 26. Being females and married were significantly associated with a higher mean IES score. The overall mean scores for intrusion and avoidance score scales in participants were 9.4 ± 3.7 and 12.1 ± 4.2, respectively.Conclusions:The COVID-19 pandemic was associated with increased stressful impact in our participants following the re-opening of the Wuhan city when compared with our previous study, which should not be taken lightly.
Highlights
Since January 2020, the COVID-19 epidemic, which is an infectious disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 infection, has been declared as a public health emergency of international concern (Zheng, 2020)
None of the participants reported that they were diagnosed with COVID-19 or that their family members/friends were tested positive for the COVID-19 when our study was carried out
Our study was the first study to investigate the psychological impact and lifestyle changes of COVID-19 among the general population in mainland China immediately after the travel restrictions in the Wuhan city were lifted on 8 April 2020
Summary
Since January 2020, the COVID-19 epidemic, which is an infectious disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 infection, has been declared as a public health emergency of international concern (Zheng, 2020). SARS-CoV-2 has been identified as one of the members of the coronavirus family, which can cause infections in both humans and animals (Yang et al, 2020). Human–human transmission has been reported through the SARS-CoV-2 virus-laden respiratory droplets (Huang et al, 2020). The transmissibility of the COVID-19 has been estimated to be 4.1 based on its reproductive numbers, indicating that on average, every confirmed case of COVID-19 will create up to a maximum of 4 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 (Wang, Pan, Wan, Tan, Xu, Ho, & Ho, 2020).
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