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. 2021;57(1):25.
doi: 10.1186/s41983-021-00280-w. Epub 2021 Feb 15.

Comparison of knowledge, attitude, socioeconomic burden, and mental health disorders of COVID-19 pandemic between general population and health care workers in Egypt

Gellan K Ahmed  1   2 , Haidi Karam-Allah Ramadan  3 , Samah Mohammed Refay  4 , Mohamed A Khashbah  5
Affiliations

Comparison of knowledge, attitude, socioeconomic burden, and mental health disorders of COVID-19 pandemic between general population and health care workers in Egypt

Gellan K Ahmed et al. Egypt J Neurol Psychiatr Neurosurg. 2021.

Abstract

Introduction: The global devastating effect of COVID-19 has caused anxiety and fear to variable extent among the public. We aimed to evaluate the knowledge, attitude, socioeconomic burden, and the mental health problems regarding anxiety, depression, and obsessive-compulsive disorder during COVID-19 on the general population and HCWs in Egypt.

Methods: This study was conducted using a semi-structured online questionnaire in May 2020. Data on demographic features, socioeconomic scale, knowledge, and attitude regarding COVID-19 and the effect on different aspects of life were collected. Assessment was done using Arabic versions of Beck's Anxiety Inventory, Beck's Depression Inventory-II, and Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale. We divided participants into non-health care workers (non-HCWs) and HCWs groups.

Results: There were 524 participants who responded to the survey from 23 governorates. More than half of the participants were females (57.4%), middle age (53%), and middle socioeconomic class (66.6%). Non-HCWs were 402 and HCWs were 122. Most participants had good knowledge about the disease and a positive attitude toward protective measures particularly in HCWs. COVID-19 showed negative impact on different aspects of participants' life. HCWs had higher frequency of anxiety (32%) and OCD (29%) than non-HCWs (30% and 28%, respectively) while non-HCWs had higher depression (69%) than HCWs (66.4%). HCWs had higher rates of severe depression (20.5%) with moderate and severe OCD (4.9%, 1.6% respectively) than non-HCWs. Female gender, young age, urban residence, students, smoking, history of medical illness, and low socioeconomic class were significant associated factors.

Conclusions: Health care workers had good knowledge about COVID-19 and a positive attitude toward the protective measures relative to non-HCWs. COVID-19 had a negative impact on different aspects of life and had a major association with the anxiety, depression, and OCD in both groups. Health professionals are more likely to have these psychological consequences.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s41983-021-00280-w.

Keywords: Anxiety; COVID-19; Depression; Egypt; Mental health; Obsessive compulsive.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interestsThe authors declare no competing interests.

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