Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Palestinian Family: A Community-Based Cross-Sectional Country-Level Online Survey (Preprint)
UNSTRUCTURED It is imperative to take lessons from the current COVID-19 Pandemic situation and to ensure that governments and local institutions have the knowledge to improve their actions. The current community-based cross-sectional descriptive study aims to better understand and assess more fully the consequences that the present COVID-19 pandemic is having on the Palestinian family using a structured online questionnaire which was distributed through a social media platform (Facebook) between 29 April 2020 and 5 June 2020. A total of 570 adults aged 18 years or over participated in the study. The vast majority of the study participants 549 (96.3%) reported that water supplies were not always available in the home during the period of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, paying attention to personal hygiene and home cleaning was more than usual before the announcement of the COVID-19 pandemic. In general, following the onset of the pandemic, around three-fourths of the study participants, 417 (73.2%) reported that the containment measures of the COVID-19 pandemic have put an additional burden on their families. There was a clear limitation in people's movement after the announcement of the COVID-19 pandemic. We suggest discussing the obtained results in focus groups with local and national stakeholders ensuring in knowledge translation towards the community.