Abstract
Although COVID-19 pandemic has re-orientated humans to be more physically healthy and hygienic, it has also persuaded humans to create affiliations and experience a sense of belongingness through social networks and digital technologies. However, amidst these changes, experiences of COVID-19 patients and their perception of the outside world's attitudes toward them appears to be less attended in literature which formed the basis for the current study's objectives. Using qualitative methodology, the present study explored the experiences, perceptions and attitudes of patients and their care-givers' toward COVID-19. The thematic analysis emerged with four major themes. Psychological Experiences of People was generated prominently with sub-themes indicating the perceived experiences like fear of spreading diseases to others, and the need for psychological counseling. Attitude of others toward patients and caregivers revealed that family members and relatives played a major positive role on the patient's mental health, however, the neighbor's stigmatized attitude led to several undesired behaviors. Social Connectedness was another major theme derived from the study. Altruistic volunteers, a sub-theme of Social connectedness have indicated that amidst these negative factors, one can spread social harmony by motivating and supporting the victims with basic needs, financial support, hope and social empathy. Opinions of participants for digital technology through technological aids and preventive measures emphasized an overall positive attitude as it helped the society, in general to maintain social connections as well to curb the rate of COVID-19 cases.
Highlights
The new respiratory disease COVID-19 is highly contagious disease
The salience of this study is to explore and attempt to understand how social media network and social connectedness aided through digital technology play an important role in maintaining relationships as well as to see if they act as a social cure during the pandemic
Data was collected from 38 participants, in which 20 were COVID-19 recovered patients, while 18 were caregivers
Summary
The new respiratory disease COVID-19 is highly contagious disease. The rate of its spread is much higher than the previous biological pandemics (Varshney et al, 2020). In order to prevent its outspread, ruling authorities across the world have announced mandatory home quarantine as a preventive measure. To minimize its spread a temporary shutdown has been imposed nationally in different ways, i.e., closing down of academic institutions, ban in public meetings, restrictions in social gatherings and social distancing. On contrary to the basic instinct of human kind, people were obliged to stay physically disconnected. While following these preventive measures, reports indicate the use of digital apps in connecting people worldwide and providing knowledge to be healthy
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