Conspiracy Beliefs Are Associated with Lower Knowledge and Higher Anxiety Levels Regarding COVID-19 among Students at the University of Jordan
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Abstract
The world has been afflicted heavily by the burden of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) that overwhelmed health care systems and caused severe economic and educational deficits, in addition to anxiety among the public. The main aim of this study was to evaluate the mutual effects of belief that the pandemic was the result of a conspiracy on knowledge and anxiety levels among students at the University of Jordan (UJ). An electronic-based survey was conducted between 29 March, 2020 and 31 March, 2020. The targeted population involved all undergraduate and postgraduate students from the health, scientific and humanities schools at UJ. Survey sections included 26 items on: socio-demographic information, knowledge and sources of information about the disease, attitude towards the false notion that COVID-19 stemmed from a conspiracy and items to assess the anxiety level among students during the quarantine period. The total number of participants was 1540 students. The mean age of study participants was 22 years and females predominated the study population (n = 1145, 74.4%). The majority of participants perceived the disease as moderately dangerous (n = 1079, 70.1%). Males, Jordanians and participants with lower income were more inclined to feel that COVID-19 is very dangerous. A lower level of knowledge and a higher level of anxiety about COVID-19 were associated with the belief that the disease is part of a conspiracy. Females and participants with lower income were more likely to believe that the disease is related to conspiracy. Belief in conspiracy regarding the origin of COVID-19 was associated with misinformation about the availability of a vaccine and the therapeutic use of antibiotics for COVID-19 treatment. The Ministry of Health in Jordan was the most common source of information about COVID-19 reported by the participants (n = 1018). The false belief that COVID-19 was the result of a global conspiracy could be the consequence of a lower level of knowledge about the virus and could lead to a higher level of anxiety, which should be considered in the awareness tools of various media platforms about the current pandemic.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2020.04.21.20064147: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement IRB: Ethical permission: The study was approved by the Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Forensic Medicine and by the Scientific Research Committee at the School of Medicine/UJ (Meeting #2 of the week 14, 2020 using WhatsApp conference call).
Consent: An informed consent was ensured by the presence of an introductory section of the questionnaire, with submission of responses implying the agreement to participate.Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources All statistical analyses were conducted in IBM SPSS Statistics 22.0 for … SciScore for 10.1101/2020.04.21.20064147: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement IRB: Ethical permission: The study was approved by the Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Forensic Medicine and by the Scientific Research Committee at the School of Medicine/UJ (Meeting #2 of the week 14, 2020 using WhatsApp conference call).
Consent: An informed consent was ensured by the presence of an introductory section of the questionnaire, with submission of responses implying the agreement to participate.Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources All statistical analyses were conducted in IBM SPSS Statistics 22.0 for Windows. SPSSsuggested: (SPSS, RRID:SCR_002865)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:This study had several important limitations. First, an inevitable caveat in all surveys is the tendency of some participants to respond in a way they believe to be suitable for the researchers. Second, during sharing of the survey, it was emphasized to answer to the best of participants’ knowledge, however there is never a guarantee that they followed such an instruction. Furthermore, willingness to participate, especially on an online-based survey, may have been limited. Another shortcoming was the female predominance in the sample and higher number of participants that were affiliated to Health and Scientific Schools. One important point should be clarified, which is related to the scoring system that was used to assess the level of knowledge among participants regarding COVID-19. This assessment tool might be arbitrary and subjective. In addition, the weight of each item can be criticized considering the difficulty in assessing the contribution of each item to overall COVID-19 knowledge. Thus, generalizability of our results in relation to this issue, should be made with extreme caution.
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.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2020.04.21.20064147: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement Ethical permission The study was approved by the Department of Pathology , Microbiology and Forensic Medicine and by the Scientific Research Committee at the School of Medicine/UJ ( Meeting #2 of the week 14 , 2020 using WhatsApp conference call) . Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable Females predominated the study population ( n=1145 , 74.4 % ) and the majority were Jordanians ( n=1386 , 90.2 % ) . Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources All statistical analyses were conducted in IBM SPSS Statistics 22.0 for Windows . 6 RESULTS Characteristics of the study … SciScore for 10.1101/2020.04.21.20064147: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement Ethical permission The study was approved by the Department of Pathology , Microbiology and Forensic Medicine and by the Scientific Research Committee at the School of Medicine/UJ ( Meeting #2 of the week 14 , 2020 using WhatsApp conference call) . Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable Females predominated the study population ( n=1145 , 74.4 % ) and the majority were Jordanians ( n=1386 , 90.2 % ) . Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources All statistical analyses were conducted in IBM SPSS Statistics 22.0 for Windows . 6 RESULTS Characteristics of the study population The total number of participants in the study who completed the questionnaire was 1540 . SPSSsuggested: (SPSS, SCR_002865)BSc is Bachelor of Science , MSc is Masters of Science and PhD is Doctor of Philosophy; 5Schools of Business and King Abdullah II School of Information Technology were excluded from this analysis because they represent two different categories ( Humanities for the former and Scientific for the later); 6Health Schools: Include the Schools of Medicine , Dentistry , Pharmacy , Nursing and Rehabilitation Sciences; 7Scientific Schools: Include the Schools of Engineering , Agriculture , and Science; 8Humanities: Include Schools of Arts and Foreign Languages , Physical Education , Archaeology and Tourism , Sharia , Educational Sciences , Arts and Design and Law; 9Monthly income: The self-reported monthly income of the family; 10JD: Jordanian Dinar . Artssuggested: None16 Participants from Health schools had higher COVID-19 knowledge , compared to participants from the Science and Humanities Schools , which might be related to the possibility of having similar subjects in their curriculum , and their general understanding of diseases . Humanities Schoolssuggested: NoneResults from OddPub: We did not find a statement about open data. We also did not find a statement about open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).
About SciScore
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