Highlights HCWs in Egypt and Saudi-Arabia experienced depression, anxiety, and stress during the COVID-19 pandemic. Female sex, age ≤30 years, attending night shifts, and watching/reading COVID-19 news associated with worse psychological disturbances. Providing psychological support to HCWs during the COVID-19 pandemic is an urgent need.

Summary University students are at elevated risk for mental health problems. The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent public health measures taken to combat it burdened the students’ life with additional dramatic psychological impacts. The aim of this study was to investigate the psychological impacts that affected the university students in Egypt during the COVID-19 pandemic. An online survey was sent to the Egyptian university students via all means of online communication during the first week of May 2020 by using a non-probability snowball sampling. A survey included a short version Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21) and socio-demographic data. Overall, 70.5, 53.6 and 47.8% of Egyptian students had depression, anxiety and stress, respectively. Being a female, having a relative or acquaintance infected with COVID-19, having a preexisting chronic disease and lacking of psychological support from families, community and universities increase the risk of depression, anxiety and stress among Egyptian students. Being a medical student is associated with depression while, spending more time to follow news of COVID-19 pandemic is associated with increased anxiety. Egyptian students experience varying levels of psychological disturbance during COVID-19 pandemic. This study suggests that mental health of the university students should be carefully, monitored during the crisis and the universities should provide psychological-oriented services, adapted to these circumstances to mitigate its emotional impact on the students.

This study aimed to evaluate the prevalence of depression, anxiety, stress, and inadequate sleeping among the public in Egypt during the novel Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19) pandemic. An online snowball sampling approach was used to collect data from netizens in four Egyptian governorates between 16 and 30 April 2020. A semi-structured questionnaire was designed to assess sociodemographic characteristics, sleeping hours per day, and psychological disturbances (depression, anxiety, and stress) of participants using the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21. Out of 1629 participants, 48.1% were aged ≤ 30 years, 42.4% were men, and 20.0% were working in the health sector. The participants reported a high prevalence of depression (67.1%: mild to moderate 44.6% and severe to very severe 22.5%), anxiety (53.5%: mild to moderate 30.6% and severe to very severe 22.9%), stress (48.8%: mild to moderate 33.8% and severe to very severe 15.0%), and inadequate sleeping (< 6 h/day) 23.1%. Female sex, working in sectors other than the health sector, watching/reading COVID-19 news ≥ 2 h/day, and lack of emotional support from family and society were associated with a high prevalence of severe to very severe depression, anxiety, and stress. In conclusion, the psychological impacts of COVID-19 on the public in Egypt were enormous, therefore, providing psychological support and counsel is warranted.