Social support through religion and psychological well-being: COVID-19 and coping strategies in Indonesia

Abstract

The Coronavirus pandemic originated in China at the end of 2019, the virus festered there for four months before spreading globally. Impacting the developed and developing world including Indonesia. It has transformed social, economic and political practices social life, everyday habits and government policies, with multi-dimensional consequences on human life. The present study endeavours to explore the relationship between religiosity, social capital, and psychological well-being of the general public, particularly in terms of coping with the pandemic. In addition to this, the study aims to highlight the importance of public awareness regarding social distancing, use of religion as a coping mechanism, and living a healthy lifestyle during pandemic. For knowing the perception of the masses, an online survey by using a self-administered questionnaire was carried out among coronavirus patients, the general public, social media activists, students, and professionals across Indonesia. The findings indicate that the pandemic has altered the lifestyle of the masses in different ways and that people have varied perceptions towards this virus regarding its spread and preventive measures. The study also reveals that, social capital (β = .418, p < .001), psychological well-being (β = .343, p < .001), and religious coping (β = .145, p <. 01) have a significant amount of the variance of coronavirus situational stress (F = 69.77, p < .001, R2 = 0.485). Lastly, the study suggests that, adopting preventative measures, standard operating procedures that are sustainable and healthy forms of coping with the pandemic will be equally as important as medical care in order to contain and eventually eradicate the virus.

Take Me to (the Empty) Church? Social Networks, Loneliness and Religious Attendance in Young Polish Adults During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Furthermore, we did not investigate more qualitative characteristics of religious involvement in our participants, and factors like spirituality (Hill & Pargament, 2003 ), non-organizational involvement in religious practices (Anderson & Nunnelley, 2016 ) or religious coping (De Berardis et al, 2020 ; Pargament et al, 2011 ), may be linked to the effects observed in the current study. Similarly, religious coping has been shown to be significantly associated with loneliness and mental well-being during the COVID-19 crisis (Saud et al, 2021 ; Yıldırım et al, 2021 ), and was not assessed in the current study.…”

“…Furthermore, we did not investigate more qualitative characteristics of religious involvement in our participants, and factors like spirituality (Hill & Pargament, 2003), non-organizational involvement in religious practices (Anderson & Nunnelley, 2016) or religious coping (De Berardis et al, 2020;Pargament et al, 2011), may be linked to the effects observed in the current study. Similarly, religious coping has been shown to be significantly associated with loneliness and mental well-being during the COVID-19 crisis (Saud et al, 2021;Yıldırım et al, 2021), and was not assessed in the current study. Furthermore, even though other studies have shown the stability of social networks in the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic (Bond, 2021), it cannot be excluded that with such a long follow-up period that the participants may have undergone multiple changes in their social network structure, associated both with general factors (e.g., changes in the relationship status over time) and COVID-19 specific issues (e.g., losing a friend or relative due to COVID-19).…”

Perceived Changes of Attitudes and Behaviors of Seventh-Day Adventists During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Findings from a Cross-Sectional Survey in Germany

“…This would underline that intensifying one´s spirituality during the pandemic is a strategy to cope with fears and worries, while it is nevertheless not necessarily contributing to psychological wellbeing. This might be different in other religious groups as shown for Muslims (Saud et al, 2021 ; Mahmood et al, 2021 ; Anchour et al, 2021 ).…”

“…It is well known that a person´s faith or spirituality can be a buffer against adverse life events (Weber & Pargament, 2014 ), and thus it was assumed that this resource is relevant also to cope with the adverse effects of the corona pandemic (Kowalczyk et al, 2020 ; Pirutinsky et al, 2020 ; Asadzandi et al, 2020 ; Barmania & Reiss, 2020 ; Peteet, 2020 ; Koenig, 2020 ; Edara et al, 2021 ). Also for Muslims, it was stated that religion and religious coping may buffer health anxiety during the pandemic and may help to stabilize their wellbeing (Saud et al, 2021 ; Mahmood et al, 2021 ; Anchour et al, 2021 ). While these findings might be true for the first phases of the pandemic, it may not be true for all societies and specifically for the later phases of the pandemic (Büssing et al, 2022 ).…”

The Mediating Effect of Coping Strategies Between Psychological Capital and Small Tourism Organization Resilience: Insights From the COVID-19 Pandemic, Malaysia

“…Firm commitment and job satisfaction are positively associated with psychological capital, according to current research on the impact of psychological capital on individual performance, attitudes, and behaviors at work ( Kang and Busser, 2018 ). Furthermore, according to Saud et al (2021) , psychological capital has a significant association with employee innovative and optimistic behaviors while dipping down negative attitudes of employees like anxiety. It can be considered that psychological capital can minimize employee anxiety and stress, and maximize employee productivity.…”