About anxiety levels and anti-anxiety drugs among quarantined undergraduate Jordanian students during COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Objective: This study was conducted to study the anxiety scores among undergraduate university students in Jordan during COVID-19 pandemic and to assess the relationship between quarantine and shifting to distance learning resulted from the governmental strict isolation measures and severity of anxiety among students. Methods: A cross-sectional design was conducted to meet the study objectives. A convenience sample of 736 undergraduate university students in Jordan was recruited, and anxiety was assessed using the Hamilton Anxiety Scale. Results: The results indicated that anxiety score was 22.76 and 40.6% of the participant experienced moderate to severe anxiety, whereas 23.5% experienced mild to moderate anxiety and 35.9% experienced mild anxiety. Factors like suffering from chronic illnesses, having chronic medications, grade point average, shifting to distance learning, quarantine during the pandemic, study duties, the newly developed evaluation methods and the experience of students towards the use of anti-anxiety drugs and herbs had significantly increased the anxiety scores. Conclusion: Our findings indicate that quarantine and shifting to distance learning during COVID-19 pandemic have negatively affected the anxiety scores of the university students which should be taken in consideration by the policymakers in Jordan in order to support this vulnerable group.