The psychological effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on health and food workers

The unexpected crisis of the Covid-19 pandemic has affected our social and economic life as well as threatening our health. While we are going through difficult times as the country's economy, the economy has become increasingly bad with a pandemic. Social life has come to a standstill. Various measures have been taken to minimize the risk of transmission of the Covid-19 virus. Restriction of country entrances and exits, cessation of activities of some businesses, curfews, and breaks in education are counted as measures. The pandemic, which has caused great changes in our working life, has brought teleworking and teleworking to the agenda. All businesses with sufficient technological infrastructure have switched to teleworking or teleworking. In this process, there have been sectors that are not suitable for remote working and have entered an intense working period. During this intense working period, the pandemic, which affected the whole world, also affected working individuals. The economy and social life of our country have been adversely affected, and this negative impact has also had reflections on the working life. Health and food sectors are at the forefront of these sectors. Due to the pandemic in health and food sector workers, its effects have emerged within the scope of work psychology. In the study, these effects were examined in four parts as the perception of illness, the perception of causes, the perception of control and avoidance behaviors. A questionnaire was used as a data collection tool in the study. Bandırma and Balıkesir were chosen as the universe of the survey study. A total of 170 volunteer health and food sector employees participated in the survey. The questionnaire consists of five sections: perception of illness, perception of causes, perception of control and avoidance behaviors, along with demographic structure. The data obtained from the survey study were analyzed and interpreted with the SPSS program. The content of the analysis is descriptive statistics, reliability test, factor analysis, T-test and ANOVA test. Keywords: Covid-19, Work Psychology, Remote Working, Food Industry, Health Industry