Anxiety and media exposure during COVID-19 outbreak in Kuwait

alasousi, l. f.; alhammouri, s.; alabdulhadi, s.

Background: Rising fear and panic among public during COVID19 pandemic increase concern regarding anxiety cases in Kuwait. Media capture our attention during this period looking for daily virus update lead to more fear . Our purpose of this study to examine the relationship between anxiety and media exposure among Kuwaiti during COVID19 outbreak Method: cross sectional study among Kuwaiti citizen between age23-55yrs old was conducted from April,21,2020 to May,15,2020 using online survey. Total of 1230 participants involve in the current study after exclusion criteria removed. Beside demographic data and media exposure anxiety was assessed using generalized anxiety disorder scale GAD-7. multivariable regression was used to identify the correlation between anxiety and media exposure Result: the result show that there is positive correlation between media exposure and anxiety during COVID19 outbreak in Kuwait (p<.001), furthermore it revealed that there is significant relationship between the frequency of exposure and anxiety(<.001) Conclusion: from this study we can understand that during COVID19 pandemic exposure to media can cause anxiety therefore measures should be taken by the governments to fight misinformation and physician should pay more attention to mental health disease during this period.