Ethical Approval

The protocol of the study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Jordan University hospital (decision no. 2020/74).

Target Population and Data Collection Tool

The targeted population was the general public of Jordan aged 18 y or older. The sampling technique attempted to scope a wide spectrum of participants through convenient and snow ball sampling. The survey was anonymous, and it was distributed using an electronic format, through Google Forms. The link to the survey, in addition to an introductory page about the survey, were sent by means of social media platforms, such as Facebook, Messenger, Twitter, and Whatsapp. The survey instrument was initially developed by the authors by means of an extensive review of the available literature.^{Reference McFadden, Malik and Aguolu3-Reference Cohen, Cohen, Williamson, Spacapam and Oskamp6} The questionnaire was in Arabic, it was reviewed for content validity by 3 PhD holders with experience in conducting such research, it was also subjected to pilot testing using a small group of participants (n = 13) from the general public with various backgrounds (working in the medical field or other fields) and ages (older than 35 and younger than 35). They reviewed the questionnaire and suggested modification to the original questionnaire based on the developments of the outbreak in Jordan. For instance, 1 of the important additions that was made based on the pilot study was the addition of a question regarding the students’ worry about their studies/graduation that could be caused by lockdown and switching teaching to online.

The final version of the survey was composed of 6 sections. The first section aimed to collect general information about the participants, such as age, gender, and a single item self-rated health status “how do you rate your general health”^{Reference DeSalvo, Bloser and Reynolds7} on a scale of 1-10, with 1 indicating poor health and 10 indicating excellent health. The second section contained general questions designed to evaluate the participants’ knowledge regarding COVID-19 disease in terms of general facts, transmission modes, presence of treatments, and common misinformation, the knowledge scale ranged from 0 to 13, it was adapted from a previous study of ours, and was modified to suit the general public.^{Reference Abdel Jalil, Alsous and Abu Hammour8} The third section consisted of 9 questions about recent changes in behaviors since the beginning of the outbreak in Jordan, such as changes in hygienic behaviors, including hand hygiene, social avoidance, and avoidance of specific places, and personal protective behaviors, such as wearing masks. Behaviors were grouped into 3 categories; participants reporting that they increased the frequency of performing protective behaviors compared with usual since the outbreak, no change in behaviors, and a change toward nonprotective behaviors (ie, performing protective behaviors less frequently compared with usual since the outbreak spread in Jordan), the questions were selected based on previous research^{Reference Rubin, Amlôt and Page5} and expected local response to the virus. The fourth section evaluated the types of information sources for COVID-19 related knowledge, how much each source was trusted, and the time spent hearing COVID-19 related news. It also evaluated, through 5 questions, the perceived sufficiency of information received about various aspects of the disease, the overall scale for these questions was from 0 to 5. The fifth section was related to general questions to assess the perceptions of the public regarding the perceived severity of the disease on a scale of 1-10, the controllability of the outbreak, perceived self-efficiency in preventing the disease^{Reference Liao, Cowling and Lam9} (0-3 scale), and the necessity of lockdown. Moreover, it also included 2 questions regarding perceived susceptibility to getting COVID-19 disease,^{Reference Liao, Cowling and Lam4} those scales were summed on a scale from 0 to 6. Another part of this section was related worries associated with COVID-19 that the Jordanian population experiences, these include worries regarding financial income, ability to secure food; medicine; and worrying that COVID-19 might infect the individual or a family member. These questions were grouped and scored on a scale from 0 to 10. Separately, participants were asked if they are worried about their studies due to the COVID-19 disease and lockdown. The last section was the Perceived Stress Scale-10 (PSS-10).^{Reference Cohen, Cohen, Williamson, Spacapam and Oskamp6} PSS-10 is a validated tool that is used to measure perceived stress levels over the past month, and has been used to measure stress in various populations, including elderly populations, pregnant women, in addition to health-care workers and students.^{Reference Chaaya, Osman and Naassan10} The total score of the tool range from 0 to 40, with higher scores indicating higher perceived stress.

Sample Size Calculation and Statistical Analysis

The minimum required sample size was calculated using the online Raosoft sample size calculator (http://www.raosoft.com/samplesize.html?nosurvey) and was 385 participants. Collected data were processed using SPPSS version 22. A chi-squared test was used to detect differences between categorical data. To determine the relationship between PSS-10 scores and the independent categorical variables, a t-test was used for binomial variables, while 1-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used for multinomial variables. For continuous variables, the Pearson correlation coefficient was computed. Variables that were statistically associated with PSS-10 scores were included in the multiple linear regression analysis. Statistical significance was considered at P < 0.05. To exclude careless responses, we used a dichotomous self-reported single item indicator.^{Reference Abdel Jalil, Alsous and Abu Hammour8,Reference Meade and Craig11}