Psychological Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Public in Egypt

Abstract

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.

Prevalence of anxiety in the COVID-19 pandemic: An updated meta-analysis of community-based studies

“…After reading the remaining 72 articles in June and 94 in August ( n = 166), we included 15 and 28 articles in our study, respectively ( n = 43). ( Ahmed et al, 2020a ; Alkhamees et al, 2020 ; Arafa et al, 2020 ; Ayhan Başer et al, 2020 ; Al Banna et al, 2020 ; Bäuerle et al, 2020 ; Choi et al, 2020 ; Cortés-Álvarez et al, 2020 ; Elhai et al, 2020 ; Fernández et al, 2020 ; Forte et al, 2020 ; Fu et al, 2020 ; Fullana et al, 2020 ; Galindo-Vázquez et al, 2020 ; Gao et al, 2020 ; Horesh et al, 2020 ; Huang and Zhao, 2020 ; Huarcaya-Victoria et al, 2020 ; Hyland et al, 2020 ; Islam et al, 2020 ; Kazmi et al, 2020 ; Lei et al, 2020 ; Liu et al, 2020 ; Moghanibashi-Mansourieh, 2020 ; Newby et al, 2020 ; Orellana and Orellana, 2020 ; Ozamiz-Etxebarria et al, 2020 ; Özdin and Bayrak Özdin, 2020 ; Palgi et al, 2020 ; Papandreou et al, 2020 ; Paulino et al, 2020 ; Pieh et al, 2020 ; Rettie and Daniels, 2020 ; Rodríguez-Rey et al, 2020 ; Shevlin et al, 2020 ; Shi et al, 2020 ; Solomou and Constantinidou, 2020 ; Stanton et al, 2020 ; Verma and Mishra, 2020 ; C. Wang et al, 2020a ; Y. Wang et al, 2020 ; Zhao et al, 2020 ).…”

“…Regarding study location, China was the most frequent country with 13 studies ( Ahmed et al, 2020a ; Choi et al, 2020 ; Elhai et al, 2020 ; Fu et al, 2020 ; Gao et al, 2020 ; Guo et al, 2020 ; Huang and Zhao, 2020 ; Lei et al, 2020 ; Liu et al, 2020 ; Shi et al, 2020 ; C. Wang et al, 2020a ; Y. Wang et al, 2020 ; Zhao et al, 2020 ), followed by 12 European studies ( Bäuerle et al, 2020 ; Forte et al, 2020 ; Fullana et al, 2020 ; Hyland et al, 2020 ; Ozamiz-Etxebarria et al, 2020 ; Papandreou et al, 2020 ; Paulino et al, 2020 ; Pieh et al, 2020 ; Rettie and Daniels, 2020 ; Rodríguez-Rey et al, 2020 ; Shevlin et al, 2020 ; Solomou and Constantinidou, 2020 ), 7 Middle Eastern studies ( Alkhamees et al, 2020 ; Arafa et al, 2020 ; Ayhan Başer et al, 2020 ; Horesh et al, 2020 ; Moghanibashi-Mansourieh, 2020 ; Özdin and Bayrak Özdin, 2020 ; Palgi et al, 2020 ), 4 Central and South American studies( Cortés-Álvarez et al, 2020 ; Fernández et al, 2020 ; Galindo-Vázquez et al, 2020 ; Huarcaya-Victoria et al, 2020 ; Orellana and Orellana, 2020 ), 5 South Asian studies ( Al Banna et al, 2020 ; Islam et al, 2020 ; Kazmi et al, 2020 ; Verma and Mishra, 2020 ) and 2 Australian studies ( Newby et al, 2020 ; Stanton et al, 2020 ). The sample size ranged from 204 to 56,679 participants, and the mean age ranged from 23.54 ± 5 years to 50.5 ± 14.9 years in the twenty-nine studies that did report it.…”

“…26 studies reported the response rate, which averaged out at 89.81 and ranged from 64.6% to 99.6%. All studies measured anxiety using symptom-based scales: 17 used the Generalized Anxiety Disorder scale (GAD) ( Bäuerle et al, 2020 ; Choi et al, 2020 ; Fu et al, 2020 ; Fullana et al, 2020 ; Galindo-Vázquez et al, 2020 ; Gao et al, 2020 ; Huang and Zhao, 2020 ; Huarcaya-Victoria et al, 2020 ; Hyland et al, 2020 ; Islam et al, 2020 ; Palgi et al, 2020 ; Papandreou et al, 2020 ; Pieh et al, 2020 ; Rettie and Daniels, 2020 ; Shevlin et al, 2020 ; Shi et al, 2020 ; Solomou and Constantinidou, 2020 ), 15 used the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS) ( Alkhamees et al, 2020 ; Arafa et al, 2020 ; Al Banna et al, 2020 ; Cortés-Álvarez et al, 2020 ; Elhai et al, 2020 ; Kazmi et al, 2020 ; Moghanibashi-Mansourieh, 2020 ; Newby et al, 2020 ; Orellana and Orellana, 2020 ; Ozamiz-Etxebarria et al, 2020 ; Paulino et al, 2020 ; Rodríguez-Rey et al, 2020 ; Stanton et al, 2020 ; Verma and Mishra, 2020 ; C. Wang et al, 2020a ), 2 used the Zung Self-rating Anxiety Scale (SAS) ( Lei et al, 2020 ; Y. Wang et al, 2020 ), 2 used State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) ( Forte et al, 2020 ; Liu et al, 2020 ), 4 used the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) ( Ahmed et al, 2020b ; Ayhan Başer et al, 2020 ; Horesh et al, 2020 ; Zhao et al, 2020 ), 2 used Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) ( Guo et al, 2020 ; Özdin and Bayrak Özdin, 2020 ) and one used Brief Symptom Inventory-53 (BSI-53) ( Fernández et al, 2020 ).…”

“…The only significant finding was a lower prevalence of anxiety for studies using the SAS (8% [95% CI: 7%–9%]) ( Lei et al, 2020 ; Y. Wang et al, 2020 ) compared to those using the BAI (18% [95% CI: 9%–30%]) ( Arafa et al, 2020 ; Ayhan Başer et al, 2020 ; Horesh et al, 2020 ; Zhao et al, 2020 ), the GAD (21% [95% CI: 17%–26%]) ( Bäuerle et al, 2020 ; Choi et al, 2020 ; Fu et al, 2020 ; Fullana et al, 2020 ; Galindo-Vázquez et al, 2020 ; Gao et al, 2020 ; Huang and Zhao, 2020 ; Huarcaya-Victoria et al, 2020 ; Hyland et al, 2020 ; Islam et al, 2020 ; Palgi et al, 2020 ; Papandreou et al, 2020 ; Pieh et al, 2020 ; Rettie and Daniels, 2020 ; Shevlin et al, 2020 ; Shi et al, 2020 ; Solomou and Constantinidou, 2020 ), the HADS (28% [95% CI: 26%–29%]) ( Guo et al, 2020 ; Özdin and Bayrak Özdin, 2020 ), the DASS (32% [95% CI: 24%–41%]) ( Alkhamees et al, 2020 ; Arafa et al, 2020 ; Al Banna et al, 2020 ; Cortés-Álvarez et al, 2020 ; Elhai et al, 2020 ; Kazmi et al, 2020 ; Moghanibashi-Mansourieh, 2020 ; Newby et al, 2020 ; Orellana and Orellana, 2020 ; Ozamiz-Etxebarria et al, 2020 ; Paulino et al, 2020 ; Rodríguez-Rey et al, 2020 ; Stanton et al, 2020 ; Verma and Mishra, 2020 ; C. Wang et al, 2020a ) or BSI (32% [95% CI: 30%–33%]) ( Fernández et al, 2020 ), and the STAI (33% [95% CI: 31%–34%]) ( Forte et al, 2020 ; Liu et al, 2020 ).…”

Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on the Psychological Status of Palestinian Adults in the West Bank, Palestine; A Cross Sectional Study

“…Regarding Arab's world, there are some studies conducted in order to assess the psychological effect for that pandemic either for general population (Alkhamees et al, 2020;Alsalman et al, 2020;Arafa et al, 2020;Burhamah et al, 2020) and for determined subgroups such as healthcare workers (Badahdah et al, 2020;Corbett et al, 2020) . The researchers used different tools and found that there is a psychological impact of that outbreak, and those studies' ndings revealed the presence of stress, anxiety and depression symptoms even at variable degrees.…”