Psychological well-being in relation to social-distancing during COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was one of the first countries in the Middle East to take strict measures to prevent the spread of the COVID-19. The present study aimed to identify the degree of application of social distancing and its relationship to psychological well-being among members of Saudi society in relation to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The study sample consisted of 564 individuals chosen by a convenience sampling method from Najran, the Southern region of Saudi Arabia, from April 1 to April 30, 2021. The data collection process employed two tools include social distancing scale and psychological well-being scale. Relation and correlation between variables were investigated using the Fisher exact test; the P-value was significant at <0.05. Data analysis was done with SPSS version 23. The results showed that the degree of application of social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic was of a medium to strong degree. In addition, significant differences were observed in the degree of the application of total social distancing attributable to the age variables in favor of the age group (> 40 years) and the scientific qualification in favor of the university qualification holders. However, there were no statistically significant differences on the gender variable.