Facilitating and Complicating Factors in Coping with Fear of COVID-19.

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has affected almost all countries' people and affected them in many ways. Turkey has been one of the countries most affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. In this study, it is aimed to examine facilitating and complicating factors in coping with the fear of COVID-19. This study was conducted with 530 people (305 females, 225 males) living in different regions of Turkey and reached online via google e-forms. Sociodemographic information of the participants was collected, and the Fear of Covid-19 Scale (FCV-19S), Short Version of the Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale (IUS-12), The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), and The World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL-BREF) scales were administered. All statistical analyzes were performed using IBM SPSS Statistics. T-test, One Way Anova and Linear Regression analysis were used to analyze the collected data. In this study, the participants reported that watching movies, reading books, and listening to music were the most important facilitating factors in coping with Fear of COVID-19. Covid-19 fear scores were analyzed in terms of some demographic variables. According to the results, there was no difference between COVID-19 fear scores in terms of gender, having a chronic disease or not, knowing someone diagnosed with Covid-19 in their immediate vicinity, and the region they lived in. we found that Prospective anxiety, inhibitory anxiety, state anxiety, and psychological health were significant predictors of Covid-19 fear. However, trait anxiety, physical health, social relationships and environment were not significant predictors of Covid-19 fear. All these variables together explained 25% of the variance in the model. Although this study has some limitations, it has an important place in the literature in revealing the facilitating and complicating factors in dealing with the fear of Covid -19. It mediates the provision of recommendations to policy makers and mental health professionals for providing psychological support services to individuals adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic process.