ABSTRACT
Background Amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and its global health and socioeconomic aftereffects, the enduring state of crisis is increasingly impacting the coping capacity of the populations. In this study, we aimed to characterize the levels of psychological distress after the lifting of COVID-19 lockdown. Results The Impact of Event Scale (IES-R) and Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scales-21 items (DASS-21) were used to screen for post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD), depression, anxiety, and stress. The prevalence of PTSD was 41.6% and was associated with severe or extremely severe stress (27.8%), anxiety (31.4%), and depression (39.0%). All disorders were strongly correlated with one another. The risk of developing PTSD was independently associated with residence in high COVID-19 prevalence region (OR = 2.25, p = 0.004), poor (OR = 3.98, p = 0.002), or moderate (OR = 1.63, p = 0.048) self-assessed overall physical health, psychiatric comorbidity (OR = 1.87, p = 0.036), number of COVID-19-like symptoms (OR = 1.94, p = 0.039), and severe COVID-19 morbidity in the acquaintances (OR = 1.54, p = 0.026). Four theories were proposed to explain these high figures, with a discussion of their practical implications. Conclusions The lifting of lockdown measures was associated with a substantial increase in psychological distress among the Saudi population, referring to figures reported during the lockdown. This may indicate a decline in the overall population's coping capacity with the enduring crisis.
ABSTRACT
Objective: This study aims to translate and validate the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R) into the Arabic language with a population of medical students at two different universities in Saudi Arabia. Method: Fifty-six male and female medical students were tested during different periods of quarantine due to the COVID-19 pandemic using both original and translated versions of the IESR. Results: The Arabic IES-R has acceptable internal consistency, with the following alpha coefficients: Intrusion (Cronbach's a= 0.85), Avoidance (Cronbach's a= 0.75), Hyperarousal (Cronbach's a= 0.74), and total IES-R score (Cronbach's alpha= 0.88), all of which were significant (p-value< 0.01). The test-retest reliability of the Arabic scale examined with the same sample is high, with correlation coefficients ranging from 0.75 to 0.81 (p-value< 0.01) for the three subscales and total score. The reliability-parallel form method of the Arabic IES-R with the original IES-R indicates excellent consistency between the two scales, with significant (p-value< 0.01) intraclass correlation ranging from 0.80 to 0.89 for its three subclasses and total score. Finally, a principal components analysis using Varimax rotation was performed with the 3-factor forced solution explains 50.5% of the variance and generated an intrusion factor (items 1,3,6,9,14,15), avoidance factor (items 5,8,11,17,22), and hyperarousal factor (items 2,4,10,12,16,18,19). Conclusion: The Arabic IES-R has proven to be a reliable and valid measure for posttraumatic stress symptoms in our sample of medical students in quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic. Category: Psychiatry, psychometry, community.