**2. Materials and Methods**

### *2.1. Sampling*

This is a cross-sectional study carried out from March 2020 until the end of August 2020. The study period coincides with the progression of COVID-19 cases in Saudi Arabia. The number of new cases has been increasing many-fold, ranging from 100 odd cases in March 2020 up to 4919 cases on 17 July 2020. The number of deaths was in single digits during March that went to a peak of 58 deaths on 5 July 2020. However, due to stringent regulations of Saudi Arabian authorities, the spread of the pandemic was well controlled, with the number of new recoveries per day was almost similar to or higher than new reported COVID-19 cases. Additionally, the media of Saudi Arabia was helping the governmental authorities in restricting the spread of rumors. Overall, the situation was alarming but well under control. Ethical approval to conduct this study was obtained from the Research Committee of College of Pharmacy, AlMaarefa University, Riyadh, with approval number (MCST (AU)-COP 2001/RC). Only female adults (aged ≥ 18 years) of Saudi Arabian nationality who provided verbal informed consent and reside in Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) were recruited in the study using convenience and snowball sampling methods. The content validity and reliability check of the questionnaire were done by Cronbach's alpha. The validated questionnaire was translated into the Arabic language, and linguistic validation was done to validate the conceptual translation of the questionnaire with the help of two qualified bilingual (English and Arabic languages) health science researchers. Pretest of the

Arabic version of the questionnaire was conducted to assess the clarity of the questionnaire, suitability to the participants, the time required to complete the questionnaire and to know the possible obstacles.

The sample size was calculated (http://sampsize.sourceforge.net) based on the 28% prevalence of psychological illness in the female population of Saudi Arabia reported in one of the studies [11] with a 5% as a precision percentage and a 95% confidence level. The required sample size was 310 for the infinite population.
