Community responses during early phase of the COVID-19 epidemic: a cross-sectional study

  1. Mohammad Hossein Delshad
  2. Fatemeh Pourhaji
  3. Fahimeh Pourhaji
  4. Saeed Reza Ghanbarizadeh
  5. Hassan Azhdari Zarmehri
  6. Edris Bazrafshan
  7. Mahdi Gholian-Aval

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Abstract

Community responses are important for outbreak management during the early phase when preventive interventions are the major options. Therefore, this study aims to examine the behavioral responses of the community during the early phase of the COVID-19 epidemic in the Razavi Khorasan Province of Iran. A cross-sectional online survey was proceeded after confirmed COVID-19 in Iran. The population of the study was 500 residents of Razavi Khorasan areas were randomly surveyed. The research tool was demographic and risk perception questionnaire and Anxiety was assessed using the 7-item GAD Scale. The data analyzed using the SPSS statistical version (V.20). The means of age participants was 31.9±11.9. The mean GAD-7 scores were 6.4±5.2 and 92.4% had moderate or severe anxiety (GAD-7 score ≥10). Many respondents reported their health status were very good or good (62.2 %; 311/500). About a quarter of them had respiratory symptoms in the past 14 days and experienced 20% of them travelled outside the Razavi Khorasan Province in the previous. Risk perception toward COVID-19 in the community of the Razavi Khorasan Province was moderate. Most participants are alert to disease progression. This study suggested timely behavioral assessment of the community is beneficial and effective to inform next intervention, and risk communication strategies in epidemic disease.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.04.04.20053546: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    RandomizationThe population of the study was 500 residents of the Razavi Khorasan Province were randomly surveyed.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    The generalized anxiety disorder questionnaire GAD [6] which measures the severity and severity of symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder over the past two weeks.
    GAD
    suggested: None

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Our study has a number of limitations. First, in order to assess the extent to which the public responded to the major public health crisis, we shortened our survey questionnaire and shortened our survey questionnaire to obtain representative population samples using randomly sampling. Second, we asked participants to remember some of their behaviors, as a result, their answers might have recalled bias.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.04.04.20053546v1 on medRxiv