COVID-19 Related Anxiety And Obsession (Coronaphobia) Screening Among Undergraduate, Diploma And Foundation Students In Cyberjaya

Abstract

Background: Since the first case of COVID-19 in Malaysia, the general population has been on high alert in taking measures to protect themself from getting infected. The purpose of this study is to study the prevalence of Coronaphobia among university students in Cyberjaya and to see how other factors such as their knowledge and sociodemographic factors play a role in the level of Coronaphobia.

 Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study (N=204) with convenience sampling was disseminated among students in Cyberjaya using a questionnaire that covers the sociodemographic factors, knowledge on COVID-19, and the anxiety and obsession towards COVID-19. The data were descriptively analyzed. Odds ratio was used to further tabulate appropriate findings from the survey. The JASP 0.14 software was used to analyze the quantitative data.

Result: A total of 2.45% and 14.22% of the respondents are found to have anxiety and obsession over COVID-19 respectively. 95.59% of students in Cyberjaya have good knowledge of COVID-19. There were no statistically significant associations between gender, ethnicity, or field of study with anxiety towards COVID-19 (p > 0.05).  There were no statistically significant associations between the aforementioned sociodemographic variables (gender, ethnicity, field of study) with an obsession towards COVID-19 (p > 0.05). Non-Malays were 4.167 times more likely to have a poor level of knowledge towards COVID-19 as compared to Malays (OR = 4.167; 95%CI: 0.071, 2.783; p < 0.05). However, there was no significant association between gender and field of study with the knowledge on COVID-19 (p > 0.05). There was no significant association between knowledge on COVID-19 with anxiety towards COVID-19.

Conclusion: The knowledge of COVID-19 among university students is good, however, could be improved among students who are non-Malays. There is no association between knowledge of COVID-19 and anxiety towards COVID-19, however, those with good knowledge of COVID-19 tend to exhibit obsession towards COVID-19.