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Psychosocial effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown on university students: Understanding apprehensions through a phenomenographic approach

Limited evidence exists to help understand the experiences of university students in relation to the long-term lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For that reason, we conducted a study using a phenomenographic approach in order to understand how university students perceive COVID-19 and the assoc...

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Autores principales: Shahbaz, Sumbal, Ashraf, Muhammad Zeshan, Zakar, Rubeena, Fischer, Florian, Zakar, Muhammad Zakria
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8118347/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33984059
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251641
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author Shahbaz, Sumbal
Ashraf, Muhammad Zeshan
Zakar, Rubeena
Fischer, Florian
Zakar, Muhammad Zakria
author_facet Shahbaz, Sumbal
Ashraf, Muhammad Zeshan
Zakar, Rubeena
Fischer, Florian
Zakar, Muhammad Zakria
author_sort Shahbaz, Sumbal
collection PubMed
description Limited evidence exists to help understand the experiences of university students in relation to the long-term lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For that reason, we conducted a study using a phenomenographic approach in order to understand how university students perceive COVID-19 and the associated lockdown. Data were collected from 25 students in Pakistan. They were asked to demonstrate the psychological effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown in illustrations. In addition, in-depth interviews were conducted with these students, to gain further insights into their perspectives on the psychosocial effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis revealed four interlinked directions for understanding students’ experiences. These themes were: 1) escape into peace, 2) hope for personal freedom, 3) fear of becoming a victim of COVID-19, and 4) concerns regarding education, future career, and opportunities. All four themes were analyzed and condensed into an outcome space, which further gathers the perceptions of students under one theme as “Hope for life while paradoxically living with fear”. Studying the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown on students not only highlighted their concerns, but also emphasized the importance of starting regular psychological evaluations and stress-releasing sessions, along with online education to overcome growing depression.
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spelling pubmed-81183472021-05-24 Psychosocial effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown on university students: Understanding apprehensions through a phenomenographic approach Shahbaz, Sumbal Ashraf, Muhammad Zeshan Zakar, Rubeena Fischer, Florian Zakar, Muhammad Zakria PLoS One Research Article Limited evidence exists to help understand the experiences of university students in relation to the long-term lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For that reason, we conducted a study using a phenomenographic approach in order to understand how university students perceive COVID-19 and the associated lockdown. Data were collected from 25 students in Pakistan. They were asked to demonstrate the psychological effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown in illustrations. In addition, in-depth interviews were conducted with these students, to gain further insights into their perspectives on the psychosocial effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis revealed four interlinked directions for understanding students’ experiences. These themes were: 1) escape into peace, 2) hope for personal freedom, 3) fear of becoming a victim of COVID-19, and 4) concerns regarding education, future career, and opportunities. All four themes were analyzed and condensed into an outcome space, which further gathers the perceptions of students under one theme as “Hope for life while paradoxically living with fear”. Studying the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown on students not only highlighted their concerns, but also emphasized the importance of starting regular psychological evaluations and stress-releasing sessions, along with online education to overcome growing depression. Public Library of Science 2021-05-13 /pmc/articles/PMC8118347/ /pubmed/33984059 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251641 Text en © 2021 Shahbaz et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Shahbaz, Sumbal
Ashraf, Muhammad Zeshan
Zakar, Rubeena
Fischer, Florian
Zakar, Muhammad Zakria
Psychosocial effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown on university students: Understanding apprehensions through a phenomenographic approach
title Psychosocial effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown on university students: Understanding apprehensions through a phenomenographic approach
title_full Psychosocial effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown on university students: Understanding apprehensions through a phenomenographic approach
title_fullStr Psychosocial effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown on university students: Understanding apprehensions through a phenomenographic approach
title_full_unstemmed Psychosocial effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown on university students: Understanding apprehensions through a phenomenographic approach
title_short Psychosocial effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown on university students: Understanding apprehensions through a phenomenographic approach
title_sort psychosocial effects of the covid-19 pandemic and lockdown on university students: understanding apprehensions through a phenomenographic approach
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8118347/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33984059
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251641
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