The Effects of Muslim Religious Beliefs on the Impact of Covid-19  of the Rural Citizens

Shahid Nadeem; Bilal Hummayoun Butt; Hassan Imran

doi:10.54692/ajss.2021.541660

Shahid Nadeem Faculty of Managements Sciences Department, DHA Suffa University, Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan.
Bilal Hummayoun Butt Head Office, Defense Housing Authority (DHA), Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan.
Hassan Imran Department of Clinical Psychology, University of Lahore, Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan

DOI: https://doi.org/10.54692/ajss.2021.541660

Keywords: Religion, COVID-19, Intrusion, Avoidance, Hyper-Arousal.

Abstract

The impacts of COVID-19 outbreak on human being mental health issues have given indication for the alarming situation for sustaining a healthy lifestyle. The diverse significance of the disease surrounded by religious group of people, ontologically, as well show the ways to an assortment of fitting sensible actions in the face of dispersion a virus. Current study focuses on intellectualize and treasure the association between religious beliefs and the impact of COVID-19 among the rural population of Pakistan. Three hundred and forty adults of central Punjab comprising of three districts including Sargodha, Faisalabad and Khushab (N=340) from both genders were taken by using purposive sampling technique. Religious beliefs were measured using the religious belief scale and the impact of COVID-19 was measured using the impact of event scale as impact of event scale- Revised (IES-R). Results revealed that a negative association was found between religious beliefs and impact of Covid-19 outbreak. Study also explored the relationship between religious beliefs and dimension of the impact of Covid-19 including Intrusion, avoidance and Hyper-arousal. Further study found that religious beliefs predicted the impact of Covid-19 negatively. Due to strong Muslim religious beliefs, they believe that Covid-19, a disease is brought by the Almighty God, and it is the Almighty who can remove this pandemic. Study was completed in short span of two months. In future it is suggested that there is need to more work on other departments of different territories Punjab (Pk).