Half of Turks feel lonely after a year of pandemic: Study
ISTANBUL
Following a year of the pandemic with anxieties and worries over COVID-19, Turkish people feel lonelier and say their emotional and mental well-being is deteriorating, a study shows.
The results of a study conducted under the leadership of Veysel Bozkurt, a faculty member of Istanbul University and a member of the Health Ministry’s Social Sciences Board, have been revealed.
Some 51 percent of the Turkish respondents feel lonely and a decline in their sleep quality since the pandemic crawled into Turkey in March last year, according to the study titled “The Effect of Pandemic on the Mood of the Community and Family Relationships.”
While the rate of those constantly feeling tired and exhausted was 39 percent in April 2020, this rate increased to 65 percent in April 2021, according to the study whose purpose is to reveal the change in the mood and family relations of the society in the last year.
The study shows that while the proportion of those who are satisfied with their lives was 60 percent in April 2020, in April 2021 this rate decreased to 44 percent.
According to the results of the research conducted with 9,129 people, it was observed that the fear of death increased in a year.
While the rate of those who had a fear of death was 28 percent last year, this rate increased to 42 percent this year.
The research noted that two-thirds of the people were afraid of losing their loved ones, and the rate of those who think they cannot control their lives is 44 percent.
The rate of those who say that their family ties were strengthened during the pandemic is on the decline.
