Psychospiritual impact of COVID-19: Africentric Perspectives

Abstract

This study sought to find out the psychospiritual impact of COVID-D as a result of the imposition of preventive measures. The study was carried out in the Mezam Division of the North West Region of Cameroon. A mixed research approach was used for the study with the aid of a questionnaire and an interview guide. A convenient sampling technique was chosen for the study based on the availability of the 50 respondents chosen for the study, using the snowball technique. The results of the study reveal that the most acceptable preventive measures that people complied to were personal hygiene (100%), taking of African traditional concoction treatments (100%) and prayers to God (100%). Psychologically, 60% of the respondents expressed symptoms of anxiety, while 30% expressed symptoms for stress and 20% expressed symptoms of depression. Spiritually, all 50 respondents (100%) indicated that their spiritual activities have been disrupted by the pandemic, which poses a real problem for an African oriented society where religion and spiritual activities are common. In conclusions, it was evident that psychospiritual dissonance including mixed and faulty beliefs on those claiming to provide solutions complicated peoples’ understanding of the realities of the situations.