Denial attitude towards COVID-19 among general population in Saudi Arabia

IntroductionDuring the current crisis of COVID 19, recent studies evident that it has a huge impact on public mental health and individuals’ behavior.ObjectivesOur study aimed to estimate the prevalence of high denial attitude towards the emerging pandemic of COVID 19 among the general population of Saudi Arabia.MethodsA cross-sectional online survey was conducted from April 3, 2020 to May 5, 2020. All participants (N= 1817) were asked to complete an online questionnaire survey that included socio-demographic and other variables, and Denial Attitude Questionnaire towards COVID-19 pandemic (DAQ-COVID-19).ResultsHigh denial attitude was prevalent among 728 (40.1 %) of the participants. It was associated with old age, being married, having low educational level, working in a non-medical professions, do not have a past history of infectious diseases, spending less than one hour following COVID-19 news, satisfied with the government procedures for COVID-19, and highly depressed and anxious respondents, where p-values were 0.001, 0.019,