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

is the (which was not peer-reviewed) The copyright holder for this preprint CI -0.31 to 1.05) did not predict distress as they did in the Chinese sample 3 . Adults with more children felt less distress (β=-1.07, p=0.048, 95% CI -2.14 to -0.01). Adults who were unsure whether they had Covid-19 reported higher distress than those who reported being free from the disease (β=-8.91, p=0.000, 95% CI -11.26 to -6.57). There is no significant difference between those who reported having the disease and the rest, possibly due to the very small number (7) of confirmed Covid-19 cases in our sample. Adults who exercised more reported lower distress (β=-2.14, p=0.000, 95% CI -3.23 to -1.06). Adults who were not working due to the Covid-19 pandemic reported higher distress than those who worked from home (β=-2.87, p=0.012, 95% CI -5.11 to -0.63), at the office (β=-2.63, p=0.059, 95% CI -5.36 to 0.10), or who were not working even before Covid-19 (β=-3.44, p=0.023, 95% CI -6.42 to -0.47). The unemployed reported higher distress than the employed (β=-3.89, p=0.020, 95% CI -7.17 to -0.60) and students (β=-5.29, p=0.020, 95% CI -9.74 to -0.85).