Examining the psychosocial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic: an international cross-sectional study protocol.

INTRODUCTION: The COVID-19 pandemic exposed people to significant and prolonged stress. The psychosocial impacts of the pandemic have been well recognised and reported in high-income countries (HICs) but it is important to understand the unique challenges posed by COVID-19 in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) where limited international comparisons have been undertaken. This protocol was therefore devised to study the psychosocial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in seven LMICs using scales that had been designed for or translated for this purpose. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: This cross-sectional study uses an online survey to administer a novel COVID Psychosocial Impacts Scale (CPIS) alongside established measures of psychological distress, post-traumatic stress, well-being and post-traumatic growth in the appropriate language. Participants will include adults aged 18 years and above, recruited from Indonesia, Iraq, Iran, Malaysia, Pakistan, Somalia and Turkey, with a pragmatic target sample size of 500 in each country.Data will be analysed descriptively on sociodemographic and study variables. In addition, CPIS will be analysed psychometrically (for reliability and validity) to assess the suitability of use in a given context. Finally, within-subjects and between-subjects analyses will be carried out using multi-level mixed-effect models to examine associations between key sociodemographic and study variables. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: Ethical approval was granted by the Human Ethics Committee, University of Otago, New Zealand (Ref. No. 21/102). In addition, international collaborators obtained local authorisation or ethical approval in their respective host universities before data collection commenced.Participants will give informed consent before taking part. Data will be collected and stored securely on the University of Otago, New Zealand Qualtrics platform using an auto-generated non-identifiable letter-number string. Data will be available on reasonable request. Findings will be disseminated by publications in scientific journals and/or conference presentations. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: NCT05052333.

Health anxiety and social health among health care workers and health volunteers exposed to coronavirus disease in Iran (2020): A structural equation modeling.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to examine the structural relationships between health anxiety and social health among Health Care Workers exposed to covid-19 in Iran. METHOD: The research was an online-survey and cross-sectional study. The sample consisted of 735 Health Care Workers and health volunteers in Iran from 13 April to 4 May 2020. Three standardized pre-tested questionnaires were used to collect data including social health, health anxiety and corona-related questions. Data were analyzed by SPSS 22 and Amos 24 software. RESULTS: The majority of the respondents were males and 51.4%, were married. Fifty-six percent of the participants were employed and 5.1 percent of respondents had covid-19. 52.6% of respondents are satisfied with the government's performance in managing corona virus. 83% of health anxiety changes are explained by social health. CONCLUSION: Increasing public awareness, efforts to reduce social anxiety and stress, and improving social functioning and social support can be part of the interventions of health policy makers and social experts.

Planning and Implementing the Protocol for Psychosocial Interventions by Social Workers in Iranian Healthcare Centers against COVID-19.

The present study aims to plan the protocol for providing psychosocial support by social workers in Iranian healthcare centers and reaching consensus in terms of implementing and offering comprehensive service to individuals dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. This qualitative study consists of four phases. The first phase, the literature review involved studying valid databases, while the second and third phases consisted of collecting data through the Focus Group Discussions with 23 specialists and experts in the field of social work and mental health. Having been designed, the protocol was then applied and assessed for two months in all the state health centers around Iran (633 hospitals). In the present study, Interventions used by the social workers were divided into 9 types: psychosocial assessment, counseling, training, working with the family, intervention in the crisis, intra- and extra-organizational support-seeking, referral and safe discharge. Interventions used by social workers were also divided based on the health center (psychosocial support for the target groups and bereavement intervention for the survivors) and the services offered in convalescent care facilities. This protocol leading social workers into the fields of bereavement interventions, inter-organizational interventions, working with families and working with the medical staff.