Maliheh Dadgarmoghaddam; Mona Najaf Najafi; Alireza Ebrahimi; Ali Talaei; Neshat Najafnajafi; AmirAli Moodi Ghalibaf
Volume 23, Issue 11 , 2021
Abstract
Background: The potential impact of the novel coronavirus pandemic on social mental health has become a great concern, and the current situation can cause different mental disorders.
Objectives: According to the importance of mental health, this study was conducted to evaluate the mental health status ...
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Background: The potential impact of the novel coronavirus pandemic on social mental health has become a great concern, and the current situation can cause different mental disorders.
Objectives: According to the importance of mental health, this study was conducted to evaluate the mental health status of the general population of Iran in Razavi Khorasan Province, Iran.
Methods: An online survey was conducted and made available for the general population of Razavi Khorasan through the snowball sampling technique within a week. The demographic information, contact history with COVID-19, and physical symptoms history of COVID-19 were collected by the survey. To maintain the population's mental health status, the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale-21, which was developed by Lovibond and Lovibond (1995), was used. To reduce the risk of bias, the online survey was supposed to be filled with a maximum of two members of a family. The data were analyzed in SPSS software (version 21) by calculating descriptive statistics and using the Chi-square test. The significance level was considered at the p-value of < 0.05 in all analyses.
Results: Finally, 461 responders from Razavi Khorasan Province were included in this study. In total, 41.8%, 32.1%, and 34.5% of the responders had depression symptoms, were in anxiety mood, and had stress symptoms, respectively. The ratio of men to women was approximately 1:2. Most participants were in the age range of 30-40 years, and the most frequent marital status was being single. Families with 3-5 members constituted 81.5% of the responders. Near one-third of the studied population had a bachelor's degree.
Conclusion: According to the results of our study, it is important to pay attention to the general populations mental health status during the COVID-19 pandemic and conduct protocols to prevent or reduce the risk of mental disorders that can be caused by the current situation.