RESEARCH ARTICLE
Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on the Psychological Status of Palestinian Adults in the West Bank, Palestine; A Cross-Sectional Study
Imad T. Asmar1, Hani Naseef 2, *, Nimeh Al-Shami2, Maram K. Jaghama1, Abdallah D. Abukhalil2, Areefa A. Karsh1, Fuad A. AlFayyah1, Ro'a M. Dagher1
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2021Volume: 14
First Page: 227
Last Page: 237
Publisher ID: TOPSYJ-14-227
DOI: 10.2174/1874350102114010227
Article History:
Received Date: 2/12/2020Revision Received Date: 28/4/2021
Acceptance Date: 28/5/2021
Electronic publication date: 05/10/2021
Collection year: 2021
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Background:
Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) rapid manifestation and spread have disrupted world norms and affected people's daily activities and life. Many ministries chose mass lockdown protocol as a way to control the virus spread. Though this protocol has shown to be effective in limiting the Virus transmission, it might have a negative impact on the population's psychological status, such as boredom, confusion, psychological stress, anxiety, depression, and physical effects.
Objective:
This study aimed to find the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Palestinian adults' psychological status by assessing the participant's practices, reports of anxiety and depression during the pandemics
Methods:
An observational descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among Palestinian adults in the West Bank, at the occupied Palestinian territories, between July and September 2020. The questionnaire was structured into two domains: the first domain includes nine questions about sociodemographic data. The second consisted of 33 (yes and no) questions evaluating the participant's psychological status.
Results:
739 participants with a mean age of 31.76, filled the online questionnaire. Around one-third of respondents revealed having many signs of anxiety, and around 42% of respondents expressed having many signs of depression. Females were significantly more likely to have signs of depression, whereas front-line COVID-19 health care workers were significantly the least likely to have signs of depression and no signs of depression were found among participants with high incomes.
Conclusion:
COVID-19 pandemic has a negative effect on mental status; most participants have signs of anxiety and depression.
