2.1 Study design and sampling
A cross-sectional study was conducted over two months starting in February 2021. The target population was adults living in the UAE who had access to social media platforms. Adults who were clinically diagnosed with depression were excluded from the study. English or Arabic proficiency was also necessary to ensure proper comprehension of the questionnaire. Nonprobability volunteer sampling was employed to ensure complete autonomy on the self-administered questionnaire.2.2 Study tool
The scale utilized for this study was the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression (CES-D; CESD, 2021), which measures depressive symptoms among participants. The instrument contained 20 items that rated the frequency of experiencing symptoms associated with depression over the past week, namely, decreased appetite, loss of interest, and disordered sleep. For each item, the response could range from 0 to 3 (0 = rarely or none of the time, 1 = some or little of the time, 2 = moderately or much of the time, 3 = most or almost all the time). The final score was a continuous scale that could span from 0 to 60, with higher scores indicating frequent depressive symptoms. The CES-D also provided cutoff scores that aided in identifying individuals at risk for clinical depression. The tool has already been validated in several studies and was reliably used in this study to diagnose depressive symptoms .