An Exploratory Study of Coping Strategies during Covid-19

Abstract

Coping with epidemics is an arduous task. The outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2(SARS-CoV-2) or popularly named COVID-19 in early months of 2020 was declared a pandemic by WHO. The virus had a multidimensional impact on the lives of the populace: economic, social and psychological. The present study aims to explore the coping strategies adopted by Indian citizens to manage this crisis. A cross sectional online observational study was undertaken to assess the coping strategies with a sample of 1003 responses. An Exploratory Factor analysis was employed to explore the coping strategies of the respondents. Furthermore a series of ANOVA tests were conducted using factor scores for the most prominent strategy and Tukey post-hoc tests were used to discern statistical significance of pairwise comparisons of factor scores across categories of socio economic characteristics of respondents. Results indicated that Cultivating Optimism, Focus on Economic stimulus, Priority to Sustainability of Life, Attention on Healthcare issues, Societal Protection and Managing Essentials of Life were the coping strategies adopted by the respondents. Unpredictably the study observed  ‘Cultivating Optimism’ as a dominant coping strategy (in terms of maximum explained variance) and the respondents reported productive utilization of time.  It clearly indicated a strategy aiming at good amidst the bad.