Türkiye's COVID-19 Pandemic Experience in the Framework of Community Resilience: A Mixed Methods Study

Purpose

A pandemic caused by the COVID-19 virus spread throughout the world in December 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic forced governments to implement various public health policies. Countries have struggled with this new situation within the limits of their resilience. The aim of the study is to determine how the components of community resilience are affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in Türkiye.

Design

Mixed methods were used in the study, incorporating both qualitative and quantitative research approaches. In the qualitative phase of the mixed method, interviews were conducted with eight academics from different disciplines to identify these components. In the quantitative phase, a questionnaire based on the data obtained in the qualitative phase was administered to 453 participants in Türkiye. The objective of the quantitative research was to determine the comparability of the data obtained from the qualitative research. In the last part of the study, the qualitative and quantitative data were combined and visualized.

Findings

According to the results of the analysis, it was determined that the community was negatively affected by disaster management policies, there were inequalities in education, and trust in society was low. The health system, economy, and psychosocial factors were perceived as more resilient.

Originality

In the study, we contribute to disaster research by identifying the factors that reduce the resilience of the Turkish community, based on the experience gained during the pandemic. For this reason, this approach may make it easier to identify factors that weaken resilience against future pandemics.