Abstract
Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spread to over 150 countries worldwide. Since the first case of COVID-19 was confirmed in Saudi Arabia, cases have continued to escalate exponentially. The COVID-19 outbreak has had a negative effect on mental health and well-being. The study aimed to investigate the effects of the strict national regulations associated with the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health.Methods: This was a cross-sectional study of a convenience sample of Saudi residents. Saudi residents aged 18 years or older were invited to complete an online questionnaire after one month of a nationwide 24-h curfew between May 6, 2020 and May 13, 2020. We measured psychological distress using the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21). We ran binary logistic regression analyses to detect variables that significantly predicted DASS-21 scores.Results: A sample of 2252 participants was recruited from the general population of Saudi Arabia. The DASS-21 score means and standard deviations for depression and anxiety for the whole sample (10.73 ± 10.29 and 6.98 ± 8.30, respectively) were in the range of mild depression and anxiety. In contrast, the mean DASS-21 stress score was within the normal range (11.97 ± 10.80). The mean stress score for healthcare workers was within the normal range (13.70 ± 10.68) but was significantly higher than the mean score for the public (11.56 ± 10.89; P = 0.0006). Several variables (e.g., age, gender, and history of contact with confirmed COVID-19 cases) were significantly associated with higher DASS-21 scores.Conclusions: The COVID-19 pandemic has created a psychological burden. Therefore, there is an urgent need to implement emergency public health interventions that ameliorate the risk perception of COVID-19 through the dissemination of adequate and targeted health information that could be a successful measure to mitigate the psychological impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Highlights
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by severe acute respiratory distress syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has developed into a worldwide pandemic since December 2019 [1]
Mental health data from the Saudi setting could provide helpful insights into the determinants of psychological health during pandemics and contribute to comparative studies across countries. In this observational cross-sectional study, we aimed to measure the levels of stress, anxiety, and depression experienced by a sample of the public during the strict regulations associated with the COVID-19 pandemic regulations in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA)
2% of the sample had been diagnosed with COVID-19
Summary
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by severe acute respiratory distress syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has developed into a worldwide pandemic since December 2019 [1]. The pandemic has had substantial global health, social and economic effects and resulted in large-scale enforcement of curfew regulations [3, 4]. Chinese studies have shown that ∼35–50% of people have experienced psychological distress owing to the COVID-19 pandemic [9, 10]. A multinational study has shown that 26.7% of healthcare workers experienced anxiety symptoms during the outbreaks [11]. Disruption to daily economic and social activities as a result of social distancing practices and government lockdown regulations is associated with substantial distress during pandemics [25]. The relationship between the aggressiveness of government lockdown regulations and anxiety has not been sufficiently studied. The study aimed to investigate the effects of the strict national regulations associated with the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health
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