Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
New Trends in Medicine Sciences, cilt.3, sa.2, ss.83-90, 2022 (Hakemli Dergi)
Abstract: Covid-19 pandemic has raised concerns about how to deal
with the psychiatric aspects of the pandemic and it was a matter of
curiosity how the perceptions of individuals who already had a
psychiatric diagnosis would be, especially a vulnerable diagnosis of
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD). We aimed to explore the
perceptions about Covid-19 pandemic in a sample of individuals
with the diagnosis of GAD. Qualitative data was obtained using a
semi-structured interview questionnaire by a psychiatrist with 33
individuals diagnosed with GAD. 14 (42.4 %) of the participants
were male, 19 (57.6 %) were female. Average age was 34.7. 7 (21.2
%) participants had Covid-19 infection. Three main themes were
determined as "learning from the pandemic process", "impact of the
pandemic process on changes in personal development", "effects on
the psychiatric treatment process". Sub-themes; 'value of health',
'patience', 'importance of cleanliness and hygiene', 'changing world',
'difficulties of staying at home', 'necessity of preparing yourself for
the worst', 'people are no good for anyone but themselves', 'things
happen to happen' 'learning to be happy with little things', 'being able
to read more books', 'uncertainty', 'spending time with children',
'enduring', 'discipline', 'negativities added to health', 'no changes',
'fires again, me again', and 'worsening with stress factor', ' awareness
', 'experience', 'helped-it, it was good' have been detected. People
with the diagnosis of GAD may be particularly vulnerable to the
psychological effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. But their positive
and negative appraisals and coping behaviours could prevent or
ameliorate future problems