Knowledge and Anxiety about COVID-19 in the State of Qatar, and the Middle East and North Africa Region—A Cross Sectional Study

Abstract

While the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic wreaked havoc across the globe, we have witnessed substantial mis- and disinformation regarding various aspects of the disease. We conducted a cross-sectional study using a self-administered questionnaire for the general public (recruited via social media) and healthcare workers (recruited via email) from the State of Qatar, and the Middle East and North Africa region to understand the knowledge of and anxiety levels around COVID-19 (April–June 2020) during the early stage of the pandemic. The final dataset used for the analysis comprised of 1658 questionnaires (53.0% of 3129 received questionnaires; 1337 [80.6%] from the general public survey and 321 [19.4%] from the healthcare survey). Knowledge about COVID-19 was significantly different across the two survey populations, with a much higher proportion of healthcare workers possessing better COVID-19 knowledge than the general public (62.9% vs. 30.0%, p < 0.0001). A reverse effect was observed for anxiety, with a higher proportion of very anxious (or really frightened) respondents among the general public compared to healthcare workers (27.5% vs. 11.5%, p < 0.0001). A higher proportion of the general public tended to overestimate their chance of dying if they become ill with COVID-19, with 251 (18.7%) reporting the chance of dying (once COVID-19 positive) to be ≥25% versus 19 (5.9%) of healthcare workers (p < 0.0001). Good knowledge about COVID-19 was associated with low levels of anxiety. Panic and unfounded anxiety, as well as casual and carefree attitudes, can propel risk taking and mistake-making, thereby increasing vulnerability. It is important that governments, public health agencies, healthcare workers, and civil society organizations keep themselves updated regarding scientific developments and that they relay messages to the community in an honest, transparent, unbiased, and timely manner.

COVID-19-Related Knowledge and Anxiety Response among Physical Education Teachers during Practical In-Person Lessons: Effects of Potential Moderators

“…PE teachers with a high level of knowledge exhibited lower levels of COVID-19-related anxiety as similarly observed in some studies conducted amongst midwifery students in Turkey [62], COVID-19 patients in Turkey [63], college students in China [64], and the general public and health workers in Qatar and the Middle East [65]. This negative association observed between COVID-19 knowledge levels and anxiety as a psychological health outcome was alluded to various population and/or situation-specific reasons.…”

The effectiveness of a health education intervention to reduce anxiety in quarantined COVID-19 patients: a randomized controlled trial

“…Our study aligns with existing literature and supports the understanding that individuals with extensive knowledge about COVID-19 tend to experience lower levels of anxiety related to the disease. This is consistent with findings from various studies conducted on Ghanaian physical education teachers [ 26 ], Turkish COVID-19 patients [ 27 ], Turkish midwifery students [ 28 ], and Qatari and Middle Eastern health care worker [ 29 ]. Hence, it is proposed that factors promoting awareness of COVID-19 can contribute to increased levels of consciousness and, consequently, reduce anxiety [ 30 – 32 ].…”

Exploring Radiologists’ Burnout in the COVID-19 Era: A Narrative Review

“…During the COVID-19 pandemic, work-related stress ramped up because of mandatory changes [ 48 , 83 , 84 , 85 , 86 , 87 , 88 , 89 , 90 , 91 , 92 , 93 , 94 ]. Several surveys [ 61 , 64 , 65 , 67 , 68 , 70 , 71 , 95 ] conducted during the COVID-19 outbreak in different countries have revealed a sensible impact of it on radiologists’ life in terms of anxiety, fear of spreading the infection, difficulty sourcing PPE, shifts in workload due to an increase in emergency procedures, and feeling that the crisis had affected their family relationships and damaged their own and their colleagues’ professional activity. In a survey conducted among North American pediatric radiologists by Ayyala et al [ 63 ], 69% of respondents endorsed feeling more isolated from a lack of regular interaction with colleagues due to an increase in remote working.…”