Problem Suicide incidences among adolescents and youths during the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID‐19) lockdowns have been reported across the world. However, no studies have been carried out to investigate cumulative nature, patterns, and causative factors of such suicide incidences. Methods A purposive sampling of Google news between 15 February and 6 July was performed. After excluding duplicate reports, the final list comprised a total of 37‐suicide cases across 11 countries. Findings More male suicides were reported (21‐cases, i.e., 56.76%), and the mean age of the total victims was 16.6 ± 2.7 years (out of a total of 29 cases). About two‐thirds of the suicides were from three countries named India (11‐cases), UK (8‐cases), and the USA (6‐cases). Out of 23‐student victims, 14 were school‐going students. Hanging was the most common suicide method accounting in 51.4% of cases. The most common suicide causalities were related to mental sufferings such as depression, loneliness, psychological distress, and so forth, whereas either online schooling or overwhelming academic distress was placed as the second most suicide stressors followed by TikTok addiction‐related psychological distress, and tested with the COVID‐19. Conclusions The finding of the temporal distribution of suicides concerning lockdowns may help in exploring and evolving public measures to prevent/decrease pandemic‐related suicides in young people.

Background: Various screening tools have been designed and developed to identify individuals with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). The current study aimed to assess the psychometric validation of the GAD-7 in Saudi university male students. Methods: Healthy university male students (n= 192) participated in this cross-sectional study. All the participants were informed about the study details. Participants were asked to complete the GAD-7, the Sleep Hygiene Index (SHI), Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), and demographic details. Results: In general, the range of the GAD total score was 0-21. There was no issue of the ceiling or floor effects as only 12.5% of participants reported the minimum score of 0, and none of the participants reported the maximum score of 21. The internal consistency score of the GAD-7 was found to be good (Cronbach's alpha = 0.83). The internal homogeneity between item scores was 0.22-0.57 as indicated by the "Spearman correlation coefficient (r)". The total scores and individual item scores of the GAD-7 were statistically associated with the PSS total score (correlation coefficient r = 0.21-0.37), and scores of the 8th and 13th item of the SHI (correlation coefficient r = 0.17-0.26, and 0.21-0.40, respectively). The exploratory factor and confirmatory factor loadings of the GAD-7 items were ranged from 0.60 to 0.81 and 0.51 to 0.80, respectively. Conclusion: This study supported the use of the GAD-7 to assess the anxiety level among Saudi university students.

Objectives This study aimed to assess the perceived work-related-stress of staff nurses and determine the relationship between work-related stress and demographic profile. Methods This study used a descriptive cross-sectional design and was conducted in a secondary public hospital (staff nurses = 178, bed capacity = 225) in Riyadh, KSA. The hospital provides medical and surgical services that are important to achieve optimum quality patient care and services. In total, 178 staff nurses were interviewed, but 15 responses were excluded because of missing data (response rate: 92.52%). Results Nurses reported a moderately stressful work environment. Nationality was found to be a significant predictor of nurses' stress levels. Indian nurses had higher stress levels compared with nurses of other nationalities. Working hours per week was another significant predictor of stress. Conclusion This study highlighted perceived work-related stress of staff nurses and determined the relationship between work-related stress and demographic profile. Most nurses were moderately stressed. Working hours were associated directly with stress level. The study findings can serve as a guide for establishing human resources policies aiming at reducing nurses' stress and, thereby, promoting improved health care and task force work performance.

BackgroundDaytime sleepiness is highly prevalent across the globe. The Epworth sleepiness scale (ESS) is the most widely used tool for screening daytime sleepiness. The psychometric properties of the ESS have not been comprehensively examined in African populations.Material and methodsA cross-sectional design with simple random sampling was used in the present study. The study recruited 600 students from Mizan-Tepi University, Ethiopia, of which 329 (age = 18–28 years and body mass index = 21.19 ± 3.17 kg/m2) completed the study. ESS, a semi-structured socio-demographics questionnaire and a clinical interview to diagnose insomnia according to the International Classification of Sleep Disorders were employed.ResultsAll except one item of the ESS showed a floor effect, while only one item score showed ceiling effect. However, no ceiling/floor effect was observed in the ESS total score. The Cronbach’s alpha (0.75) and composite reliability (0.75), indicated good internal consistency, while a moderate item-total score correlation (r = 0.55–0.67) implied favorable internal homogeneity. The known-group validity was established by significantly higher scores for all the ESS item scores and the ESS total scores among those with symptoms of insomnia than among non-symptomatic students. Fit indices along with the consideration of inter-factor correlation coefficient, measures of item retention favored the unidimensional structure of the ESS.ConclusionThe ESS has excellent psychometric validity for screening daytime sleepiness in Ethiopian university students.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12955-019-1098-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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