The effects of COVID-19 on wellbeing and resilience among Muslims in Turkey

ABSTRACT

This cross-sectional exploratory study surveys the general perceived adverse effects of COVID-19 on people's wellbeing (including obsessive-compulsive disorder symptoms (OCDS)) and the level of resilience shown against it, with specific reference to the role of religiosity and optimism. Data were collected in an online survey from 247 non-randomly selected participants in Turkey, aged 12–64. The questionnaire included a demographic form, a battery of COVID-19 scales, the Brief Obsessive-Compulsive Scale, a short-form Optimism Scale, and the Ok-Religious Attitude Scale. The results indicate that COVID-19 significantly and negatively influenced several aspects of people's lives, including finance, mood, life perspective, physical health, spirituality, and state of mental health. Furthermore, resilience, family solidarity, religiosity, and optimism played a positive role in overcoming the negative effects. Nonetheless, women, less religious people, pessimists, and anxiety-prone individuals, including people with OCDS symptoms, reported that they felt less resilient against the perceived adverse effects of COVID-19.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• OCD
• resilience
• optimism
• religiosity
• Muslim

Acknowledgements

We would like to express our thanks and gratitude to Dr. Sana Ghazi and Feba Daniel in The Writing Center at Ibn Haldun University for their tireless efforts in proofreading and vitalising the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 This search was conducted during the review process.

2 Findings of more than one study regarding the Muslim population in Turkey revealed different results, which range from 83% to 98% (Hackett et al., 2012). Therefore, it is fair to safely estimate that Muslims consist of around 90% of the population of Turkey with a somewhat broad confidence interval level.