Coping during COVID-19 Pandemic in Saudi Community: Religious Attitudes, Practices and Associated Factors

Fahad D. Algahtani, Mohamed Ali Alzain, Najoua Haouas, Khadijah Angawi, Bandar Alsaif, Adel Kadri, Mohamed A. Dkhil, Mejdi Snoussi and Rafat Zrieq
Additional contact information
Fahad D. Algahtani: Department of Public Health, College of Public Health and Health Informatics, University of Ha’il, Ha’il 55476, Saudi Arabia
Mohamed Ali Alzain: Department of Public Health, College of Public Health and Health Informatics, University of Ha’il, Ha’il 55476, Saudi Arabia
Najoua Haouas: Laboratory of Medical and Molecular Parasitology-Mycology LP3M (Code LR12ES08), Department of Clinical Biology, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Monastir, Monastir 5000, Tunisia
Khadijah Angawi: Department of Health Services and Hospital Administration, Faculty of Economics and Administration, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah 80200, Saudi Arabia
Bandar Alsaif: Department of Public Health, College of Public Health and Health Informatics, University of Ha’il, Ha’il 55476, Saudi Arabia
Adel Kadri: College of Science and Arts in Baljurashi, Albaha University, Albaha 1988, Saudi Arabia
Mohamed A. Dkhil: Department of Zoology, College of Science, King Saud University, Riyadh 11795, Saudi Arabia
Mejdi Snoussi: Department of Biology, College of Science, University of Ha’il, Ha’il 55476, Saudi Arabia
Rafat Zrieq: Department of Public Health, College of Public Health and Health Informatics, University of Ha’il, Ha’il 55476, Saudi Arabia

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 16, 1-14

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has affected many societies’ life aspects and activities including social and Islamic practices; more attention should be given to investigate the interaction between Islamic worships and the spread of the disease. Here, we performed a cross-sectional study using an online questionnaire to assess the preventive Islamic attitudes and practices during the COVID-19 lockdown period from the Saudi publics’ perspectives. Mann-Whitney, Kruskal and logistic regression tests were used to analyze the data. The results revealed that most participants had positive Islamic attitudes and practices. However, elders and males were less obeyed to preventive measures during performing worship ( p < 0.05). While younger, females and not married were less obeyed when dealing with COVID-19 related death ( p < 0.05). Even though, elders were less likely to have poor social and Islamic practices concerning adherence to preventive measures during the pandemic (OR = 0.38; 95% CI: 0.176–0.816) than younger. Furthermore, males, Saudi participants, lower education level, lower Islamic attitudes scores were more likely to have poor social and Islamic practices concerning adherence to preventive measures during the pandemic (OR = 1.65; 95% CI: 1.126–2.421; OR = 1.57; 95% CI: 1.067–2.322; OR = 3.09; 95% CI: 1.721–5.563; and OR = 1.89; 95% CI: 1.309–2.753, respectively), than their corresponding targeted counterparts. Thus, despite the high preventative perceptions of Islamic attitudes and practices of the Saudi community, our study highlighted some risk groups with less preventative practices. Thus, targeted health education interventions are highly recommended for these risk groups to enhance the commitment to government instructions.

Keywords: COVID-19; pandemic; religion; Islam; prevention measures; health education intervention; KSA (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/16/8651/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/16/8651/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:16:p:8651-:d:615416

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().