dc.description.abstract |
Introduction: The first outbreak was documented in December 2019, in Wuhan, China, as pneumonia of unknown
etiology related to a seafood market exposure. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, the first cases had
been detected at a hotel in the Bethlehem area, where a group of Greek tourists had visited the hotel in late February
2020. There are many previous studies shown that communicable diseases such as Ebola and SARS showed an
impact on mental health includes depression, anxiety, and drug abuse. The aims of the study are to assess the
prevalence of psychological well-being responses resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic on Palestine general
population. Methods: During the middle stage of the outbreak, researchers conducted an online-based survey
using a snowballing sample technique. The survey collected data about socio-demographic characteristics and
psychological well-being using the general health questionnaire wish consists of (28) questions aimed to assess
these sections dealt with somatic symptoms, anguish/anxiety, social dysfunction, and depression. Results: Our
survey recruited 1200 subjects of the general public of Palestine. More than two-thirds of subjects were female
and their age between 20-39 years. The prevalence of the psychological well-being of the Palestinian subjects.
Almost 83% have poor psychological well-being, while 17% have good psychological well-being. Significant
differences were found in gender (p=<0.001), marital status (p=<0.001), place of residence (p=<.001), types of
work (p=.011), working status (p=<.001), a committee to quarantine (p=.023) and knowing someone who were
infected with coronavirus (p=<.001). Conclusion: Our findings can be used to construct an urgent psychological
intervention focused on the general population and to implement public mental health policies
in combination with pandemic response efforts in the middle stages of the event |
en_US |