COVID-19-related anxiety disorder in Iraq during the pandemic: an online cross-sectional study

Abstract

Background The COVID-19 outbreak is an unprecedented global public health burden, which popped up in China in late 2019 to early 2020 and distributed worldwide rapidly. Indeed, this pandemic transmission has raised global physical and mental health concerns. Mental health issues that concur with this public health emergency may pose anxiety, depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder. In Iraq, there are no registered known data on the psychological consequence of the public during the communicable disease outbreak. The ongoing study aims to address the paucity of these data as an appraisal of the mental health burden represented by anxiety disorder related to the global COVID-19 era. Results Among the 1591 Iraqi respondents, 788 (49.5%) accounted for having health anxiety over the current home restriction situation. Younger ages experienced more COVID-19-related health anxiety compared to older ages. Females reported higher health anxiety compared to males (57.7% vs 42.3%). The health care professionals reported 20.9% health anxiety. The Iraqi southern population displayed more health anxiety compared to the northern and middle portions. This work showed about half of the respondents were spending over 60 min focusing on news of COVID-19. We found that 80 to 90% carrying out preventive efforts and home quarantine against COVID-19 infection. Interestingly, participants experienced fear from the risk of COVID-19 infection, whether more or equal to a level of war scare, in 70.1% of the sample. Conclusions In Iraq, during the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly half of the respondents have health anxiety. Southern Iraqi cities displayed higher rates of anxiety. Also, being female, younger ages, holding an academic degree, or being a college student are associated with more prominent degrees of anxiety. Furtherly, it is important to adopt strategies for public health education and prevention and alerting future governmental responses focusing on psychological state impact among the general population.

Public fear of COVID-19 vaccines in Iraqi Kurdistan region: a cross-sectional study

“…Women experience more health anxiety than males as a result of a public health issue and they experience more fear, and this can be observed due to gender differences [ 21 , 22 ]. Furthermore, women were the most affected in a study conducted in Peru among 3887 persons on the fear perception of the COVID-19 vaccination [ 2 ], as it was in Iraq [ 23 ], which is consistent with the ongoing study. Another notable finding in this study is that young people and mature adults were more fearful of the COVID-19 vaccines, which is consistent with other studies conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Kurdistan area [ 24 ], Iraq [ 23 ], Austria [ 25 ], and the UK [ 26 ].…”

“…Furthermore, women were the most affected in a study conducted in Peru among 3887 persons on the fear perception of the COVID-19 vaccination [ 2 ], as it was in Iraq [ 23 ], which is consistent with the ongoing study. Another notable finding in this study is that young people and mature adults were more fearful of the COVID-19 vaccines, which is consistent with other studies conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Kurdistan area [ 24 ], Iraq [ 23 ], Austria [ 25 ], and the UK [ 26 ]. These age groups are using technology more than the elderly.…”

The impact of COVID‐19 confinement on the eating habits and lifestyle changes: A cross sectional study

“…Getting weight and/or perception of gaining weight can impart negative impact on body and psychological and well-being of individuals on immune system. Recent studies have confirmed viral infections of COVID-19 can be more severe among obese (Rychter et al, 2020) and stress and anxiety (Karim et al, 2020).…”

“…Getting weight and/or perception of gaining weight can impart negative impact on body and psychological and well‐being of individuals on immune system. Recent studies have confirmed viral infections of COVID‐19 can be more severe among obese (Rychter et al, 2020) and stress and anxiety (Karim et al., 2020). Therefore, it is worth suggesting that besides staying healthy, psychological aspect is also important and helpful in better managing this pandemic.…”

Psychological distress among healthcare providers during COVID-19 in Asia: Systematic review and meta-analysis

“…Almost half (n = 70) of the studies were conducted in China [ 8 , 11 , 23 – 90 ], followed by 15 studies in India [ 10 , 91 – 104 ], 11 studies in Turkey [ 105 – 115 ], 10 studies in Saudi Arabia [ 116 – 125 ], 6 studies in Pakistan [ 126 – 131 ], 4 studies in Indonesia [ 132 – 135 ] and Nepal [ 136 – 139 ] respectively, 3 studies in Malaysia [ 140 – 142 ], Singapore [ 143 – 145 ], Japan [ 146 – 148 ] and Iran [ 149 – 151 ] respectively with 2 studies in Oman [ 152 , 153 ], Jordan [ 154 , 155 ], Philippines [ 156 , 157 ] and Bangladesh [ 158 , 159 ] respectively. Besides, Korea [ 160 ], Qatar [ 161 ], and Iraq [ 162 ] which each had one study, there were also some multinational studies that were conducted, with 2 of them involving several countries in Asian Pacific [ 9 , 163 ] and another one involving both Egypt and Saudi Arabia [ 164 ] (Table A4 in S4 Table ).…”