Resilience in Times of Crisis: Stressors and Coping Strategies during Pandemics in Egypt

Abstract

Background

Psychological distress in response to pandemics is debated to have a serious and long-lasting impact on consumers’ well-being. The unprecedented nature of pandemics is associated with a wide range of life stressors and coping strategies that vary across countries. Understanding the stressors and coping strategies during pandemics is imperative for social and business reasons.

Focus of the Article

The study contributes to the area of positive behavior change during critical life events where social marketing can play a profound role in undertaking downstream marketing initiatives that promote adaptive coping strategies for handling emergent threats and stressors.

Research Question

What coping mechanisms are employed to handle the stressors during times of change? How do individual’s appraisals of the potential threat and self-efficacy affect their coping strategies?

Importance to Social Marketing Field

The study provides valuable insights to inform social marketing strategies by enriching the field of health communication within social marketing. By exploring the psychological and emotional stressors as well as the coping strategies, this research underscores the importance of targeted communication strategies to support community well-being and resilience.

Methods

To provide evidence on stressors and coping strategies during COVID-19, a sample of 50 Egyptian adults were interviewed.

Results

The majority of the participants mentioned the fear of losing loved ones, health threats, and uncertainty as the main stressors. Emotion-focused coping was adopted more often than problem-focused coping. Pursuing hobbies and home tasks and seeking support from family and friends were among the most used coping strategies. High self-efficacy was found to be associated with problem-focused coping strategies.

Recommendations for Research and Practice

Findings add to the growing literature demonstrating the unique impacts of COVID-19 on consumers’ well-being and their corresponding coping strategies. The specific types of coping strategies people endorse in managing stress and building resilience in handling the pandemic offer important policy and managerial implications.

Limitations

Given the qualitative nature of the study, the sample size limits the generalizability of the results. Despite the rich insights generated from the qualitative investigation, employing quantitative methods in future studies would help in examining the impact of coping strategies on consumers’ well-being.