Spiritual Well-Being and Psychological Distress among Muslims During COVID-19: An Empirical Analysis

Abstract

The impact of COVID-19 becoming more serious for most of the people as they are facing challenges in sustaining their financial and emotion stability. Muslims find it even more difficult due to the distractions to perform worship in the mosque during the previous period of Movement Control Order (MCO). The objectives of this study were (1) to examine the level of spiritual well-being and the level of depression, anxiety and stress among Muslims during previous MCO.; (2) To test the relationship between spiritual well-being and psychological distress among Muslim people during previous MCO. This was a non-experimental quantitative research involving 133 respondents of Muslim people who lived in Terengganu, Malaysia during previous MCO. A set of survey questions consisting of demographic information, the Spiritual Well-Being Scale (SWBS) and the Clinical Scale for Depression, Anxiety and Stress (DASS-21) were used in this study. Mean descriptive statistics were used to see the level of spiritual well-being and depression, anxiety and stress of the respondents, and correlation analysis was employed to identify the relationship between spiritual well-being and psychological distress among respondents. The findings show that the level of spiritual well-being as well as depression, anxiety and stress among Muslims in Terengganu during previous MCO was at moderate level. There was a negative relationship between spiritual well-being and depression, anxiety and stress (r= -0.103, n=131, p<0.01). This indicates that Muslim people in Terengganu during previous MCO were not much affected from the psychological aspect nor spiritual well-being. However, indeed spiritual well-being play it roles in controlling the depression, anxiety and stress even though many constraints had to be faced such as the limitation of spiritual activities in the mosque and so on. It is recommended for future research to examine deeper through mixed methods including observation and interview, especially involving older respondents.