Anxiety, worry and perceived stress in the world due to the COVID-19 pandemic, March 2020. Preliminary results.

Rosario Sinta Gamonal Limcaoco; Enrique Montero Mateos; Juan Matias Fernandez; Carlos Roncero

The authors of this article, anticipated that the outbreak of COVID-19 would be stressful for people. Taylor et al. 2010 , described the high levels of reliance on the support of others to get through tough times, for example, the vulnerability that may be felt by this potential global health threat which is requiring the use of physical control measures, such as social distancing, home quarantine, and school and work closures, all resulting in disruption to social support networks at a time when they may be needed most. Brooks et al. 2020 , informs that the psychological impact of quarantine is wide-ranging, substantial, and can be long lasting. This change of circumstances and raise of stressors has to make psychiatrists be attentive to possible relapses in patients with mental health problems. Taking into consideration the lockdown and quarantine situation, the researchers decided to do evaluate the current state on the general population with a web-based survey that was considered at this moment a useful and fast method that can help determine how people perceived stress and worry due to the COVID-19. Feizi et al. 2012 , points out that psychological stresses are also associated with huge increase of mortality in general population, if the quarantine experience is negative, it suggests there can be longterm consequences that affect not just the people quarantined but also the healthcare system as referred to the Brooks et al. 2020, study. In order to determine the current and future support people will need to confront this situation.