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Denial attitude towards COVID-19 among general population in Saudi Arabia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2021

S. Alsubaie*
Affiliation:
Psychiatry, Armed Forces Hospital Southern Region, Khamys Mushait, Saudi Arabia
H. Alshahrani
Affiliation:
College Of Medicine, King Khalid University, Khamys Mushait, Saudi Arabia
A. Alshahrani
Affiliation:
Psychiatry, Armed Forces Hospital Southern Region, Khamys Mushait, Saudi Arabia
A. Asiri
Affiliation:
College Of Medicine, King Khalid University, Khamys Mushait, Saudi Arabia
A. Alfaifi
Affiliation:
College Of Medicine, King Khalid University, Khamys Mushait, Saudi Arabia
R. Al Ibrahim
Affiliation:
College Of Medicine, King Khalid University, Khamys Mushait, Saudi Arabia
W. Alqahtani
Affiliation:
College Of Medicine, King Khalid University, Khamys Mushait, Saudi Arabia
*
*Corresponding author.

Abstract

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Introduction

During the current crisis of COVID 19, recent studies evident that it has a huge impact on public mental health and individuals’ behavior.

Objectives

Our study aimed to estimate the prevalence of high denial attitude towards the emerging pandemic of COVID 19 among the general population of Saudi Arabia.

Methods

A cross-sectional online survey was conducted from April 3, 2020 to May 5, 2020. All participants (N= 1817) were asked to complete an online questionnaire survey that included socio-demographic and other variables, and Denial Attitude Questionnaire towards COVID-19 pandemic (DAQ-COVID-19).

Results

High denial attitude was prevalent among 728 (40.1 %) of the participants. It was associated with old age, being married, having low educational level, working in a non-medical professions, do not have a past history of infectious diseases, spending less than one hour following COVID-19 news, satisfied with the government procedures for COVID-19, and highly depressed and anxious respondents, where p-values were 0.001, 0.019, <0.001, 0.027, <0.001, <0.001, 0.004, 0.008, and 0.026; respectively.

Conclusions

About two out of five participants had high denial attitude. To our knowledge, the current study is the first study that tries to evaluate a high denial attitude during the initial COVID 19 outbreaks, especially in Saudi Arabia. However, further exploration in this field is needed. We suggest conducting such a study at the end of the current pandemic or in the second wave of the outbreak

Type
Abstract
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the European Psychiatric Association
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