ABSTRACT
COVID-19 starts to spread between the countries since the beginning of 2020 and infects millions of people worldwide. The governments put a strict rule, including lockdown, to prevent the disease;many health consequences happened and got attention from clinicians and researchers. This study aim to assess the severity of anxiety symptoms developed in King Faisal University students by continuous stress and lockdown due to the pandemic (COVID-19). A cross-sectional study was done using the Arabic version of the Hamilton anxiety rating scale, which we apply online, targeting King Faisal University students;the total number of participants was 529. This study showed that 73.2 % of King Faisal University student have mild anxiety symptoms, 14.2 % reported to have mild to moderate anxiety symptoms, while 7.4 % of the students have moderate to severe anxiety symptoms, only a few (5.3%) of the students reported to have very severe anxiety symptoms. The severity of anxiety symptoms significantly related to age, marital status, being a medical college student and smoking. We can conclude that most participants have mild anxiety symptoms while the rest of the participants reported having more severe anxiety symptoms. Age, marital status, smoking and being a medical college student can affect the severity of anxiety symptoms among the population. It is highly recommended to start screening, education and prevention programs for psychiatric impacts among university students and the community as soon as possible since the COVID 19 pandemic is still going. © 2021 Teikyo University School of Medicine. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Objective: Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has been declared a pandemic. The current study aimed to assess public's knowledge, perception, and attitude during COVID-19 outbreak. Methods: An online survey was administered during the rapid outbreak of COVID-19 in Saudi Arabia. Questions focused on the signs, symptoms, transmission, prevention, and control of COVID-19. In addition, the attitudes and practices of the participants were explored. Descriptive statistics, t-test, and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) which followed by Tukey post-hoc test was conducted. Results: 2453 respondents participated in this study. 90.6% of them represent eastern of Saudi Arabia. Most of them had good knowledge about COVID-19. Better knowledge was among female, attitude improve significantly with age and knowledge was significantly higher among higher educational level. The practices of wearing a mask (80.6%) and keeping a safe distance from people in public places (82.5%) were common among the participants. Conclusion: Participants demonstrated good knowledge, optimistic attitudes, and practices toward most aspects of the COVID-19 outbreak. Suggesting that governmental efforts of health education about COVID-19 is helpful and important to control the disease.