Examining the relationship between psychological health, perception of god, perceived stress and fear of COVID-19 pandemic

Starting from the end of 2019, the pandemic process, which manifested itself as a pandemic on global scale. It was known as Covid-19 in the wider public, which has undoubtedly affected all of humanity. This research was conducted during the Covid-19 pandemic process. The aim was to find out the reflections of the crisis on the particepents. Such as depression, anxiety, stress level, perception of God and to draw a picture of how adult individuals go through the Covid-19 process in the context of existing relationships. Act of prayer and refuge to God as a behavior in this context is a very important data source in terms of achieving the purpose of the study. The quantitative part of the research belongs to the basic research group according to its purpose. A single survey research was conducted using the Brief Symptom Inventory, Perception of God Scale, Perceived Stress Scale, Covid Fear Scale and questionnaire. Since the needed data had to be obtained during the Covid-19 pandemic, the instant study class was used according to the time of data collection. The Associational Research Method type was preferred in order to understand the phenomena in better way. The research, in which mixed method was used, was analyzed in two dimensions. In the qualitative dimension, semi-structured interview technique was used to obtain data from the participants regarding their perceptions and perspectives on the meaning of life during the pandemic. The research consists of 400 people, 323 of whom are women and 73 of whom are men. It was found that the love-oriented God perception of the participants who received religious education from their families as children during the Covid-19 pandemic process scores higher than the other participants. In addition, it was observed that the love-oriented perception of God levels of married participants were higher than single participants. In addition, it was found that as the Covid fear levels of the participants increased; anxiety, negative self, depression, hostility, somatization levels of fear-oriented God perception levels, inadequate self-efficacy perception and stress/discomfort perception levels were found to increase. While 71% of the participants preferred expressions with religious references in the way they defined the situation they were in during the corona virus outbreak, they expressed themselves as pessimistic and anxious. Participants stated that they experienced self-questioning and realizations in this process. The majority of the participants stated that what happened after the pandemic process will be forgotten and old habits will return. The environment created by the Covid-19 pandemic process has adversely affected psychological health of people. In such a period, it has been observed that active use of values such as positive thinking, self-awareness, effective communication, gratitude, and patience in in their lives facilitated the protection of the psychological health of the participants. For this reason, it is recommended that people participate in spiritual psychoeducation programs that can effectively cope with difficult life events before crisis periods.