Psychological Distress During COVID-19 Pandemic
Condition: Psychological Distress; COVID-19 Pandemic; Satisfaction
MeSH terms: COVID-19
Study type: Observational

Summary: 
      Design, sample, and setting This is a cross-sectional study using an Internet-based
      self-administered questionnaire of closed-ended questions and using convenience sampling. In
      total, 612 undergraduate students completed the survey in Mansoura University.

      Data collection Data was collected anonymously through an online questionnaire created using
      the technology of Google Forms provided by Google ™ and was constructed in Arabic language.
      The questionnaire consisted of three sections. The first section assessed students' baseline
      characteristics including sex, age, area of study, academic level, residence, marital status,
      family members infected, close people infected, and knowing someone who died of the
      infection.

      The second section measured the psychosocial effects of COVID-19 pandemic using two
      instruments, University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) Loneliness Scale, version 324 and
      Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS-21).19 The UCLA Loneliness Scale is a widely used
      self-report instrument of loneliness consisting of 20 items designed to measure both
      emotional as well as social loneliness. Response of each item was rated on a four-point scale
      from (1) never to (4) always felt as expressed in each item. Final score ranges from 20 to 80
      with higher scores demonstrating higher feelings of loneliness. The scale's reliability was
      found to be high with alpha coefficients ranging from 0.89 to 0.94 for samples of students.
      The Arabic version of UCLA Loneliness Scale was used in the current study according to the
      Arabic translation in Egyptian culture by Daswqee.20 The correlation coefficients values were
      0.76 for females and 0.74 for males.
    

Detailed description: 
      Since December 2019, the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spread from Wuhan city
      to different areas in China and around the world. On 11 March 2020, the World Health
      Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic. On 14 February 2020, the
      Egyptian Ministry of Health reported the first case of COVID-19. To control the COVID-19
      outbreak, the Egyptian government introduced preventive and containment measures with a
      partial closure starting on 25 March. On 31 March, Egypt pronounced 710 COVID-19 cases and 46
      related deaths with a mortality rate of 6.48%. As on 06 June 2020, there were 1497 new cases
      with total cases of 32 612, a total of 1198 deaths and 8538 full recovery. Generally, several
      potential stressors were caused by the pandemic that might lead to psychological distress and
      life dissatisfaction. Individuals' overall assessments of their psychological wellbeing and
      quality of life are referred to as life satisfaction. Psychological distress takes the shape
      of a negative emotion, which contrasts with life contentment. It refers to people's
      unfavorable emotional reactions to several stimuli, which might include tension, dread, worry
      and psychological instability.
    

Observational model: Cohort
Time perspective: Cross-Sectional
Sampling method: Non-Probability Sample
Study population: 
        - adults (18 years and above) in all regions of Egypt who were willing to participate in
        the study. The study adopted an online survey, and the study population may not reflect the
        actual pattern of the general population.
      
Keywords: psychosocial effects; COVID-19