Anxiety and media exposure during COVID-19 outbreak in Kuwait

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Abstract

Background

Rising fear and panic among public during COVID19 pandemic increase concern regarding anxiety cases in Kuwait. Media capture our attention during this period looking for daily virus update lead to more fear. Our purpose of this study to examine the relationship between anxiety and media exposure among Kuwaiti during COVID19 outbreak

Method

cross sectional study among Kuwaiti citizen between age23-55yrs old was conducted from April,21,2020 to May,15,2020 using online survey. Total of 1230 participants involve in the current study after exclusion criteria removed. Beside demographic data and media exposure anxiety was assessed using generalized anxiety disorder scale GAD-7, multivariable regression was used to identify the correlation between anxiety and media exposure

Result

the result show that there is positive correlation between media exposure and anxiety during COVID19 outbreak in Kuwait (p<.001), furthermore it revealed that there is significant relationship between the frequency of exposure and anxiety(<.001)

Conclusion

from this study we can understand that during COVID19 pandemic exposure to media can cause anxiety therefore measures should be taken by the governments to fight misinformation and physician should pay more attention to mental health disease during this period.

Article activity feed

  1. SciScore for 10.1101/2020.08.24.20180745: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIRB: The study included Kuwaiti residence from the age of 23-55 year and excluded the following: Ethical committees approved this study in the ministry of health Kuwait (1409/2020).
    Consent: An online semi-structured questionnaire was developed with a consent form attached to it.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.


    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:
    Another limitation is the lack of enough information from this questionnaire to calculate the prevalence of anxiety which might illuminate the current mental health status. For future study, we recommend exploring the causal relationship by cohort study design for the 31.9% of responders who did not follow the news but have increased levels of anxiety.

    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.