The distress of Iranian adults during the Covid-19 pandemic - More distressed than the Chinese and with different predictors

Asghar Afshar Jahanshahi; Maryam Mokhtari Dinani; Abbas Nazarian Madavani; Jizhen Li; Stephen X Zhang

One of the countries most affected by Covid-19 is Iran 7 . When we started our survey on March 28, 2020, Iran had one of the highest national counts of Covid-19 confirmed cases (35,408) and deaths (2717), and a mortality rate of 7.6%, as reported by the Iranian government. The figures reported by BBC Persian for Iran, however, were much higher. The Covid-19 outbreak in Iran has been compounded by the ongoing decade-long US-led sanctions on Iran. A Lancet correspondence noted that "all aspects of prevention, diagnosis, and treatment are directly and indirectly hampered, and the country (Iran) is falling short in combating the crisis. Lack of medical, pharmaceutical, and laboratory equipment such as protective gowns and necessary medication has been scaling up the burden of the epidemic and the number of casualties" 7 . We provide the first empirical evidence on Iranian adults' level of distress and identify several predictors of their distress under the Covid-19 pandemic to enable early screening for targeting mental health services online.