Health-Anxiety and COVID-19 Stress with Mediating Role of Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Among Individuals Diagnosed with COVID-19

The present study aims to investigate the relationship between health anxiety and COVID-19 stress with mediating role of generalized-anxiety disorder and obsessive-compulsive symptoms among individuals diagnosed with and without COVID-19. A total of 837 participants were targeted, and 474 respondents met the study inclusion and exclusion criteria. Google Form included sample demographic information with measures of the Coronavirus Stress Scale (CSS; Taylor et al., 2020), Health Anxiety Inventory (HAI; Abramowitz et al., 2006), Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS; Woody et al., 1995), and Generalized Anxiety Disorders Scale (GAD; Spitzer et al., 2006). We performed t-test, correlation and mediation analysis (through PROCESS and AMOS) using SPSS version 27. Results indicate that diagnosed individuals were significantly different on HAI, GAD, OCS, and COS compared to those never diagnosed. Similarly, women scored higher on health anxiety, generalized anxiety symptoms, obsessive-compulsive symptoms and COVID-19 stress than men. In addition, a significant positive relationship was found between health anxiety and COVID-19 stress with mediating role of generalized anxiety symptoms, and obsessive-compulsive symptoms in increasing COVID-19 stress. It is concluded that diagnosed individuals with COVID-19 and women were found more vulnerable to health anxiety, generalized anxiety symptoms, obsessive-compulsive symptoms and COVID-19 stress during the pandemic.