Abstract
COVID-19 outbreak affects patients with chronic diseases in several ways including psychological and pathological effects. Accordingly, the present study aimed to evaluate the pathopsychological impact of the COVID-19 outbreak in patients with comorbidities in Saudi Arabia. In this online questionnaire-based cross-sectional study, 161 Saudi patients with chronic diseases were conscripted during the country's complete lockdown due to the COVID-19 outbreak (May-June,2020). A purposeful electronic questionnaire was premeditated and circulated over different social media clusters irrespective of age or gender.On asking the patients "Does COVID-19 outbreak disturb your treatment", 70/161(43.5%) answered "Yes". Out of the 70 patients 31/88(35.2%) were males and 39/73(53.4%) were females, the risk with female gender RR (95%CI) = 1.5166 (1.0632 to 2.1633), P = 0.0216, z statistic = 2.298. On asking the patients "Does COVID-19 outbreak increased your illness", 81/161(50.5%) answered "Yes". On asking the patients "Did you get new pathologic symptoms due to irregularity of treatment", 73/161(45.3%) answered "Yes". Patients with chronic diseases were extremely influenced (pathologically and psychologically) by the COVID-19 outbreak procedures. The psychological influence was more common among women compared to men.