MENTAL HEALTH BEFORE AND DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC: A LONGITUDINAL PROBABILITY SAMPLE SURVEY OF THE SAUDI POPULATION

Introduction: Public health emergencies such as COVID-19 pandemic has a negative effect on the physiological and mental health of both general population and communities. These negative effects appeared as emotional reactions, unhealthy behaviors, and noncompliance with public health guidelines the aim of this study was to investigate the psychological effect and to determine the depression prevalence among the Saudi population during the COVID-19 outbreak in Saudi Arabia.

Methodology: this cross-sectional study included Saudi populations who are older than 16 years. The sample size was calculated according to Raosoft Website Sample Size Calculator. The questionnaire contains three parts. The first part includes sociodemographic information. The second part contains information about past COVID-19 infection among participants or their relatives, and past history of depression. The third part contains information about mental health which was assessed using the 9-itemed patient health questionnaire. Ch-square test was used to assess the statistical significance. A p-value <0.05 was considered significant.

Result: 200 Saudi participated in the study. Out of them 119 (59.5%) were males and 81 (40.5%) were females. The mean age of the participants was 32.17 ± 9.48 years. The percentage of the participants who had mild to severe symptoms of depression was 62.5%. 24.5% had mild depression, 13% had moderate depression, 13% had moderately severe depression symptoms and 13.5% had severe depression symptoms. A significant relationship was found between dpression symptoms and educational level, history of personal COVID-19 infection or infection among relatives, and history of depression (p-value < 0.05)

Conclusion: The prevalence of depression among the study population was slightly higher than what was reported in regional studies in Saudi Arabia, which might be due to different assessment tools used in the previous studies. This study clearly demonstrates a relationship between COVID-19 pandemic and depression symptoms as evident by the strong statistical relationship between depression and COVID-19 infection among participants and/or one of their relatives. Strategies and policies need to be implemented to protect vulnerable groups of participants from mental health effects of COVID-19 pandemic.