Examination of the relationship between COVID-19 induced psychological distress and desire to eat and social media addiction in adults

This study was conducted to examine the relationship between psychological distress caused by covid-19 of adult individuals and their desire to eat and social media addiction. In addiction, it was aimed to determine whether these variables differ according to the demographic characteristics. The population of the study was made up of adult individuals living in Turkey, and the sample was consisted of 406 adult individuals who participated in the study through online. Relational survey model was used in the research. The data were collected using the Sociodemographic Information Form, the Covid-19 Psychological Distress Scale, the Desire to Eat Scale and the Social Media Addiction Scale via an online questionnaire. The SPSS 25 program was used to evaluate the collected data. The SPSS 25 program was used to evaluate the collected data. The normality assumption related to the variables of the study was evaluated with data on skewness and kurtosis. The Correlational Analysis, Independent Sample t-test, Anova were used to analyse the data. As a result, it was determined that there is a statistically significant positive relationship between psychological distress caused by Covid-19 and desire to eat and social media addiction. Significant differences were found in the psychological distress caused by covid-19 according to the gender, age, working status and having Covid variables. There were significant differences in the level of desire to eat compared to the variables of gender, age, marital status, having children, having Covid, receiving psychological support. Significant differences were found in the level of social media addiction according to gender, age, marital status, working status, income status, having a child and having Covid. In accordance with these results, it can be suggested that psychologists and the related professionals should benefir these research findings in order to provide more effective psychological support to the individuals who need psychological help against negative situations such as psychological distress, excessive eating desire or social media addiction caused by Covid-19.