Psychological Impact and Predisposing Factors of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Pandemic on General Public in China

Background: The pandemic of COVID-19 posed an unprecedented threat and cascade of challenges to the general public in China, especially in the outbreak-affected severely city, Wuhan. The psychological impact of the public in response to the epidemic disasters as well as the predisposing factors analysis are desperately needed. Methods: Self-administered questionnaires were distributed online to the general population of different regions from January 30 to February 13, 2020.The Self-Reporting Questionnaire-20, Patient Health Questionnaire-9 and Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 were used to identify psychological distress. The logistic regression analyses were performed to figure out the risk factors of the positive detection rate of psychological abnormality. Results: 14,592 respondents who were evaluated on psychological status in 31 provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities of China were included in the study, with a positive detection rate of SRQ-20, PHQ-9, GAD-7 being 33.2%, 53.5%, 44.6%, respectively. The male gender (OR=0.812,95%CI:0.748~0.881,P＜0.001), advanced degree of education (OR=0.723,95%CI:0.649~0.805,P＜0.001), student (OR=0.816,95%CI:0.695~0.958,P=0.009) were viewed as the protective factors of post-catastrophe stress. While young in age(OR=1.843,95%CI:1.669~2.034,P＜0.001), divorced status (OR=1.486,95%CI:1.252~1.769,P＜0.001), being in poor physical condition (OR=18.889,95%CI:7.419~48.094,P＜0.001) were the predisposing factors of it. The risk factors for state anxiety and depression underlying the shadow of the COVID-19 epidemic were similar to those of acute stress, notwithstanding there was no significance in the positive detection rate of depression between the genders and no differences in anxiety of diverse educational levels. Conclusion: These results shed lights on the necessity for emergency medical health system to pay attention to the extent of stress and psychological distress among the general public during and even after the biodisaster, which contributed to the targeted psychological services and rescues being put into effect timely. Funding Statement: This work was supported by Beijing Municipal Science &Technology Commission grant (Z191100006619104). Declaration of Interests: There was no conflict of interest to declare. Ethics Approval Statement: This study has been fully approved by the ethics committee of Beijing Huilongguan Hospital, and the informed consent of the participants was all obtained.