ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 outbreak started in December 2019, first from the China city, Wuhan. The rapid spread of the virus has affected the worldwide population involving 208 countries including UK, USA, Spain, Italy and Pakistan, and has been declared a global pandemic by the WHO. Strict measures have been taken globally to control the COVID-19 outbreak. With limited availability of resources, the government of Pakistan to different measures to prevent the spread, such as establishing screening and testing, isolation and quarantine facilities and training medical professionals and enforcing lockdown. Pakistan ranking 5th in the list of Populated countries and also being a developing country, requires financial aid as well as facilitation to combat the outbreak. Also overviewing the measures, proper hospital facilities are to be established and should be available in every region of the country, whereas the testing and screening facilities are required to be set as per the population of the country. The vaccines being introduced worldwide, its arrival in Pakistan and making it available for the population is also an effort made by the Government to bring back things to normal. Educating citizens and abiding by the safety rules to prevent the spread is still the area that needs to be worked upon. We have highlighted the measures and steps taken by the Pakistani government in last one year, to combat COVID-19 and to ensure the country’s safety and minimize mortality. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Professional Medical Journal is the property of Professional Medical Journal and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND AND AIMS: To assess the psychometric properties of the Fear of COVID-19 (FCV-19S) scale and to determine its associated factors among the Pakistani patients with diabetes. METHODS: This observational study was conducted in 24-h helpline service, a department of Baqai Institute of Diabetology and Endocrinology (BIDE). Study duration was from August to September 2020. The target population was registered adult patients with type 2 diabetes aged >16 years. Baseline demographic details were obtained from hospital management system of BIDE. Forward-backward translation method was used to translate the existing Fear scale (FCV-19S). Symptoms of depressive disorder were assessed through Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ9). RESULTS: Total of 380 participants with mean age 51.93 ± 12.03 years contributed in the study. Three factors loading and item correlation of fear COVID-19 explained 96% of total variance having unidimensional Cronbach's alpha of 0.881. All demographic indicators that showed significance in univariate model were included in multivariate model. Females had more fear for COVID-19 compared to males (OR = 1.73, 95% CI (1.15-2.6)), whereas current smokers had also showed 4 times more fear than non-smokers (OR = 4.19, 95% CI (1.18-14.83). Depression assessed by PHQ9 showed maximum fear of COVID-19 in participants with moderate depression. CONCLUSION: FCV-19S had adequate psychometric properties for assessing effects of pandemic in people with diabetes attending tertiary care center.