Title: COVID-19-related anxiety disorder in Iraq during the pandemic: an online cross-sectional study

 Authors: Saad Kazim Karim , Perjan Hashim Taha, Nazar Mohammad Mohammad Amin, Habeeb Shuhaib Ahmed, Miami Kadhim Yousif and Ammar Mohmmed Hallumy

 Objective: in Iraq, there are no registered known data on the psychological consequence of the public during the communicable disease outbreak. The study aims to address the paucity of these data as an appraisal of the mental health burden represented by anxiety disorder related to the global COVID-19

Results: Among the 1591 Iraqi respondents, 788 (49.5%) accounted for having health anxiety over the current

Home restriction situation. Younger ages experienced more COVID-19-related health anxiety compared to older ages. Females reported higher health anxiety compared to males (57.7% vs 42.3%). The health care professionals reported 20.9% health anxiety. The Iraqi southern population displayed more health anxiety compared to the northern and middle portions. This work showed about half of the respondents were spending over 60 min focusing on news of COVID-19. We found that 80 to 90% carrying out preventive efforts and home quarantine against COVID-19 infection. Interestingly, participants experienced fear from the risk of COVID-19 infection, whether more or equal to a level of war scare, in 70.1% of the sample.