Attitudes towards and mental health during COVID-19 pandemic: An online cross-sectional survey in the State of Goiás, Brazil

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.33448/rsd-v9i10.8841

Keywords:

COVID-19; Knowledge; Attitude; Anxiety; Mental healthcare.

Abstract

The novel Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19) has been spreading through all the world fastly leading to a massive public reaction. The knowledge and attitude toward measures for prevention are essential in the control of pandemic infection. Pandemics may contribute to intensified levels of stress, and anxiety is a natural reaction to any stressful situation. This study aimed to assess the knowledge, attitudes towards, anxiety and perceive mental health care among Brazilian Population from Goiás State during COVID-19 pandemic. An online survey was conducted, and a total of 251 responses were received. The participants were older than 18 years, with an average of 33.95. The participants demonstrated a moderate level of knowledge about the COVID-19 infection and its preventive aspects with more than 92% believing that social distance is essential to stop the virus spread and 93.2% agreeing to quarantine or isolate themselves if they present symptoms. Sleep difficulties and distress related to social media were reported in 20.8% and 48.6% of participants, respectively. Most agreed on the need for mental healthcare and assistance from professionals during the pandemic. Our results reflect the need to raise awareness and discuss people's mental health concerns and highlights the urgent need for the government and professional associations be prepared to deal with the psychological effects of the pandemic.

References

Bell, D. M. (2004). Public Health Interventions and SARS Spread, 2003. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 10(11), 1900–1906.

Brasil. (2013). Resolução no 466, de 12 de dezembro de 2012. Diretrizes e normas regulamentadoras de pesquisas envolvendo seres humanos. Diário Oficial Da União [da] República Federativa Do Brasil, 150(112).

Brasil. (2016). Resolução nº 510, de 7 de abril de 2016. Diário Oficial da União, 44-46.

Brooks, S. K., Webster, R. K., Smith, L. E., Woodland, L., Wessely, S., Greenberg, N., & Rubin, G. J. (2020). The psychological impact of quarantine and how to reduce it: rapid review of the evidence. The Lancet, 395(10227), 912–920.

Castro-de-Araujo, L. F. S., & Machado, D. B. (2020). Impact of COVID-19 on mental health in a Low and Middle-Income Country. Ciência & Saúde Coletiva, 25(suppl 1), 2457–2460.

Chen, N., Zhou, M., Dong, X., Qu, J., Gong, F., Han, Y., Qiu, Y., Wang, J., Liu, Y., Wei, Y., Xia, J., Yu, T., Zhang, X., & Zhang, L. (2020). Epidemiological and clinical characteristics of 99 cases of 2019 novel coronavirus pneumonia in Wuhan, China: a descriptive study. The Lancet, 395(10223), 507–513.

Clements, J. M. (2020). Knowledge and Behaviors Toward COVID-19 Among US Residents During the Early Days of the Pandemic: Cross-Sectional Online Questionnaire. JMIR Public Health and Surveillance, 6(2), e19161.

Desai, A. N., & Patel, P. (2020). Stopping the spread of COVID-19. Jama, 323(15), 1516.

Everts, J. (2013). Announcing swine flu and the interpretation of pandemic anxiety. Antipode, 45(4), 809–825.

Ferguson, N., Laydon, D., Nedjati Gilani, G., Imai, N., Ainslie, K., Baguelin, M., Bhatia, S., Boonyasiri, A., Cucunuba Perez, Z., & Cuomo-Dannenburg, G. (2020). Report 9: Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID19 mortality and healthcare demand. Technical Report. London: Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team.

Guan, W., Ni, Z., Hu, Y., Liang, W., Ou, C., He, J., Liu, L., Shan, H., Lei, C., Hui, D. S. C., Du, B., Li, L., Zeng, G., Yuen, K.-Y., Chen, R., Tang, C., Wang, T., Chen, P., Xiang, J., … Zhong, N. (2020). Clinical Characteristics of Coronavirus Disease 2019 in China. New England Journal of Medicine, 382(18), 1708–1720.

Li, Q., Guan, X., Wu, P., Wang, X., Zhou, L., Tong, Y., Ren, R., Leung, K. S. M., Lau, E. H. Y., Wong, J. Y., Xing, X., Xiang, N., Wu, Y., Li, C., Chen, Q., Li, D., Liu, T., Zhao, J., Liu, M., … Feng, Z. (2020). Early Transmission Dynamics in Wuhan, China, of Novel Coronavirus–Infected Pneumonia. New England Journal of Medicine, 382(13), 1199–1207.

Liu, Y., Gayle, A. A., Wilder-Smith, A., & Rocklöv, J. (2020). The reproductive number of COVID-19 is higher compared to SARS coronavirus. Journal of Travel Medicine, 27(2).

Lu, H. (2020). Drug treatment options for the 2019-new coronavirus (2019-nCoV). Bioscience Trends, 14(1), 69–71.

Mao, L., Jin, H., Wang, M., Hu, Y., Chen, S., He, Q., Chang, J., Hong, C., Zhou, Y., Wang, D., Miao, X., Li, Y., & Hu, B. (2020). Neurologic manifestations of hospitalized patients with coronavirus disease 2019 in Wuhan, China. JAMA Neurology, 77(6), 683-690.

Menzies, R. E., & Menzies, R. G. (2020). Death anxiety in the time of COVID-19: theoretical explanations and clinical implications. The Cognitive Behaviour Therapist, 13, e19.1–e19.11.

Pakpour, A. H., & Griffiths, M. D. (2020). The fear of COVID-19 and its role in preventive behaviors. Journal of Concurrent Disorders, 2(1), 58-63.

Reis, J. C. S., Melo, P., Garimella, K., Almeida, J. M., Eckles, D., & Benevenuto, F. (2020). A Dataset of Fact-Checked Images Shared on WhatsApp During the Brazilian and Indian Elections. Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, 14, 903–908.

Ricard, J., & Medeiros, J. (2020). Using misinformation as a political weapon: COVID-19 and Bolsonaro in Brazil. The Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) Misinformation Review, 1(2), 1-6.

Rodriguez-Morales, A. J., Gallego, V., Escalera-Antezana, J. P., Méndez, C. A., Zambrano, L. I., Franco-Paredes, C., Suárez, J. A., Rodriguez-Enciso, H. D., Balbin-Ramon, G. J., Savio-Larriera, E., Risquez, A., & Cimerman, S. (2020). COVID-19 in Latin America: The implications of the first confirmed case in Brazil. Travel Medicine and Infectious Disease, 35, 101613.

Rothan, H. A., & Byrareddy, S. N. (2020). The epidemiology and pathogenesis of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak. Journal of Autoimmunity, 109, 102433.

Roy, D., Tripathy, S., Kar, S. K., Sharma, N., Verma, S. K., & Kaushal, V. (2020). Study of knowledge, attitude, anxiety & perceived mental healthcare need in Indian population during COVID-19 pandemic. Asian Journal of Psychiatry, 51, 102083.

Sakib, N., Bhuiyan, A. K. M. I., Hossain, S., Al Mamun, F., Hosen, I., Abdullah, A. H., Sarker, M. A., Mohiuddin, M. S., Rayhan, I., Hossain, M., Sikder, M. T., Gozal, D., Muhit, M., Islam, S. M. S., Griffiths, M. D., Pakpour, A. H., & Mamun, M. A. (2020). Psychometric Validation of the Bangla Fear of COVID-19 Scale: Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Rasch Analysis. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 11, 1-12.

Salehi, S., Abedi, A., Balakrishnan, S., & Gholamrezanezhad, A. (2020). Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19): A Systematic Review of Imaging Findings in 919 Patients. American Journal of Roentgenology, 215(1), 87–93.

Tan, Y., Tan, B., Pan, J., Wu, J., Zeng, S., & Wei, H. (2020). Epidemiologic and clinical characteristics of 10 children with coronavirus disease 2019 in Changsha, China. Journal of Clinical Virology, 127, 104353.

Vartti, A.-M., Oenema, A., Schreck, M., Uutela, A., de Zwart, O., Brug, J., & Aro, A. R. (2009). SARS knowledge, perceptions, and behaviors: a comparison between Finns and the Dutch during the SARS outbreak in 2003. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 16(1), 41-48.

World Health Organization: WHO. (2020a). Coronavirus disease (COVID-2019) situation reports. Retrieved August 28, 2020 from https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200130-sitrep-10-cov.pdf?sfvrsn=d0b2e480_2.2020.

World Health Organization: WHO. (2020b). Rolling updates on coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Retrieved August 28, 2020 from https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/events-as-they-happen.

World Health Organization: WHO. (2020c). WHO Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Dashboard. Retrieved August 28, 2020 from https://covid19.who.int/.

Xu, X.-W., Wu, X.-X., Jiang, X.-G., Xu, K.-J., Ying, L.-J., Ma, C.-L., Li, S.-B., Wang, H.-Y., Zhang, S., Gao, H.-N., Sheng, J.-F., Cai, H.-L., Qiu, Y.-Q., & Li, L.-J. (2020). Clinical findings in a group of patients infected with the 2019 novel coronavirus (SARS-Cov-2) outside of Wuhan, China: retrospective case series. BMJ, 368, m606.

Yang, J. Z., & Chu, H. (2018). Who is afraid of the Ebola outbreak? The influence of discrete emotions on risk perception. Journal of Risk Research, 21(7), 834–853.

Zhang, J., Dong, X., Cao, Y., Yuan, Y., Yang, Y., Yan, Y., Akdis, C. A., & Gao, Y. (2020). Clinical characteristics of 140 patients infected with SARS‐CoV‐2 in Wuhan, China. Allergy, 75(7), 1730–1741.

Zheng, F., Liao, C., Fan, Q., Chen, H., Zhao, X., Xie, Z., Li, X., Chen, C., Lu, X., Liu, Z., Lu, W., Chen, C., Jiao, R., Zhang, A., Wang, J., Ding, X., Zeng, Y., Cheng, L., Huang, Q., … Jin, R. (2020). Clinical Characteristics of Children with Coronavirus Disease 2019 in Hubei, China. Current Medical Science, 40(2), 275–280.

Zhong, B.-L., Luo, W., Li, H.-M., Zhang, Q.-Q., Liu, X.-G., Li, W.-T., & Li, Y. (2020). Knowledge, attitudes, and practices towards COVID-19 among Chinese residents during the rapid rise period of the COVID-19 outbreak: a quick online cross-sectional survey. International Journal of Biological Sciences, 16(10), 1745-1752.

Downloads

Published

04/10/2020

How to Cite

SOUZA, U. J. B. de; VITORINO, L. C.; BESSA, L. A. Attitudes towards and mental health during COVID-19 pandemic: An online cross-sectional survey in the State of Goiás, Brazil . Research, Society and Development, [S. l.], v. 9, n. 10, p. e4599108841, 2020. DOI: 10.33448/rsd-v9i10.8841. Disponível em: https://www.rsdjournal.org/index.php/rsd/article/view/8841. Acesso em: 18 apr. 2024.

Issue

Section

Health Sciences