Psikiyatride Güncel Yaklaşımlar (Mar 2024)
Anxiety during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Prevalence, Effects and Predisposing Factors
Abstract
Although infectious diseases have emerged in various periods of history, the outbreaks seen worldwide due to globalization have started to increase in recent years. Epidemics had significant effects on the psychological health of individuals. The most important effect of COVID-19 pandemic on individuals was anxiety. In the days when other pandemic diseases are at the door, the understanding of anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic in individuals is a very important issue. In the COVID-19 outbreak, the general sample, university students, those diagnosed with COVID-19, and healthcare workers were the groups most affected by anxiety. In different countries, moderate anxiety symptoms in different waves of the epidemic ranged from 6.3% to 66.8% in the general sample, between 18.6% and 87.7% in university students, between 13.0-60.3% in people diagnosed with COVID-19, and between 13.0-51.6% in healthcare workers. In the follow-up studies, it was noted that the anxiety symptoms did not regress to the pre-pandemic level for a long time in these samples. According to the findings, anxiety associated with COVID-19 is associated with psychological health. As COVID-19-related anxiety increased, negative emotions, dysfunctional behaviors, sleep problems and depressive symptoms increased.The fact that anxiety is common, persistent and associated with other psychological symptoms during the epidemic made it necessary to understand the underlying factors of anxiety. Findings indicate that anxiety sensitivity, disgust susceptibility/sensitivity, intolerance to uncertainty, and health anxiety play a role in explaining anxiety symptoms associated with COVID-19. These susceptibility factors may contribute to the development of cognitive-behavioral oriented therapeutic and preventive intervention programs both during/after epidemic and future epidemics especially in the general sample, university students, those diagnosed with COVID-19, and healthcare workers.
Keywords
