RESUMO
Background and objectives: The World Health Organization (WHO) announced the appearance of a new coronavirus disease in Hubei province, China, to be a public health emergency of international concern. The objectives of this study can be highlighted through classifying the information sources for identifying protective practices, death probability, gender-death associations probability and education level. Methodology: This is a descriptive design study conducted among the Kurdistan Region/Iraq population via an online application between 1 March and 1 May 2020. Three hundred twenty people participated in this questionnaire study. The data were collected through an online form, relying upon a self-report questionnaire. The questionnaire had three main parts. The first part is related to the socio-demographic characteristics of the sample, including gender, age, family status, address status and education level. The second part involves the items related to precautionary measures using none, sometimes, and always. The last part contains items related to death probability owing to other causes and this includes five categories: extremely low, low, intermediate, high and extremely high. The validity and reliability of this questionnaire were revised by the panel of experts before the data collection. Results: The outcomes of the study revealed that the majority, ca. 73%, of the Kurdistan Region/Iraq population depended on TV to obtain information about COVID-19. Also, this investigation showed that there is a substantial association between participants with infection prevention and control practices relevant to COVID-19. Moreover, according to this study, there is a significant relationship between the death probability and COVID-19. Concurrently, there is not any significant association between other causes, namely cancer, heart diseases, diabetes and road traffic accidents, and the death probability. Conclusion: This study showed that for the majority of the Kurdistan Region/Iraq population the most reliable source of information for any COVID-19 related updates is the TV broadcast. This study also indicated that there is strong association for the majority of individuals regarding their practices for prevention from COVID-19 and death probability with COVID-19. However, there is not any substantial association between the epidemic and the other deadly calamities and the death probability.
RESUMO
Purpose: Since December 2019, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic has swept the world, causing widespread burden and increasingly hospitalizations. Researchers from around the world have tried to study the virus and its effect with more precision in various fields. The purpose of this study is to identify levels of anxiety and depression with regard to precautionary for prevention of COVID-19, and to identify the relationship between demographic variables and both depression and anxiety. Methods: This was a descriptive cross-sectional study; data were collected by questionnaire via a mobile phone application in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq from 25 March, 2020 to 5 April, 2020. The sample size was 894 after deleting 20 cases because of duplication. The questionnaire consists of three main parts; part one is related to the sociodemographic characteristics of participants, the second and third parts consist of items related to depression and anxiety about COVID-19 using a 5-point Likert Scale (1 = of course no, 2 = no , 3 = normal for me, 4 = yes, and 5 = of course yes). Data was analyzed using SPSS V.25. Results: The majority of the participants were from Erbil (58.8%), most of them were male (58.4%); nearly 21.2% preferred quarantine and 41.7% chose curfew as a best way to to avoid being infected by COVID-19. Most of the participants had depression because of people's lack of knowledge about how to protect themselves from the virus (88.14%), while the majority of them had anxiety concerning shopping and contact with infected people (97%) and financial problems (97%). Females had higher rates of COVID-19 depression than did males. There was a significant correlation between age and home setting and anxiety, and a significant association between marital status and level of education and depression. There was no significant association between other variables and depression and anxiety. Conclusion: The findings of the study indicated that the majority of participants were depressed and had anxiety about COVID-19. There was a significant association between gender and depression and anxiety, while there was no significant association between occupation and income, and depression and anxiety.
