The Effects of COVID-19 Pandemic on Adults Living in Turkey and Ways of Coping

ABSTRACT

This study investigated the experiences and views of adult people living in Turkey about the changes in their usual life during the pandemic, the effects of these changes, difficulties they had, and ways of coping with these difficulties. The study adopted a qualitative design within the scope of the phenomenological approach. The study sample consisted of 449 adults. The findings showed that the changes due to the pandemic were divided into eight categories that included social life, work-life, daily routines, emotions, school life, economy, and cognitive and physiological changes. The participants reported both positive and negative effects of these changes in terms of emotions, cognition, work and school life, physiology, and social life. In the pandemic process, the participants were found to have difficulties in emotions, social life, work-life and economy, physiology, and daily routines. To cope with these difficulties, the participants were found to demonstrate various emotion-focused, problem-focused, and appraisal-focused behaviors.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• pandemic
• quarantine
• coping
• Turkey

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.