IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsoctx/v13y2023i4p90-d1113680.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

“We Can Manage This Corona Disaster”: Psycho-Social Experiences of a Diverse Suburban Middle-Class Community in South Africa: Interview-Based Study

Author

Listed:
  • Susanne Jacobs

    (Faculty of Health Sciences, COMPRES (Community Psychosocial Research), CCYC (Centre for Child, Youth and Family Studies), North-West University, Potchefstroom 2520, South Africa)

Abstract

The study concerns psycho-social domains experienced in a diverse suburban middle-class community, reporting the most positive cases and the deepest suffering, and interactions towards adaptation in stressful situations, such as the Coronavirus pandemic. This qualitative investigation used a descriptive design, with a strengths-based perspective directing a two-phased method. Through non-probability convenience sampling, 80 participants completed a web-based qualitative questionnaire (phase one). From those, 20 purposely selected volunteers participated in individual, face-to-face, open-ended, and unstructured interviews (phase 2). Themes, interpreted as one set, show how strengths and resilience appear, despite extreme shock and uncertainty. Transitional processes in psycho-social spheres reveal conscious decisions towards dynamic engagement, embracing change, reflecting on life’s value, and regarding novel meaningful priorities in contrast with “before”. Most prominent relational spaces have human connections in the inner (close) and outer (community) circles. Personal, meaningful relationships strengthen social bonds. Appreciative inquiry (AI) assisted in the transitional process to co-construct awareness of the positive core, emotional agility, and pride in embracing and expanding on newly developed strengths. Interpreted inductively, meaning described in abstracted knowledge can be transferred to and integrated with other contexts, identifying new initiatives and trans-, multi-, and inter-disciplinary debates mitigating psycho-social consequences and fostering resilience during disasters.

Suggested Citation

  • Susanne Jacobs, 2023. "“We Can Manage This Corona Disaster”: Psycho-Social Experiences of a Diverse Suburban Middle-Class Community in South Africa: Interview-Based Study," Societies, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-15, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsoctx:v:13:y:2023:i:4:p:90-:d:1113680
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/13/4/90/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/13/4/90/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bart Buelens & Joep Burger & Jan A. van den Brakel, 2018. "Comparing Inference Methods for Non‐probability Samples," International Statistical Review, International Statistical Institute, vol. 86(2), pages 322-343, August.
    2. Sarah Michael, 2005. "The promise of appreciative inquiry as an interview tool for field research," Development in Practice, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(2), pages 222-230.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ramón Ferri-García & María del Mar Rueda, 2022. "Variable selection in Propensity Score Adjustment to mitigate selection bias in online surveys," Statistical Papers, Springer, vol. 63(6), pages 1829-1881, December.
    2. Luis Castro-Martín & María del Mar Rueda & Ramón Ferri-García, 2020. "Estimating General Parameters from Non-Probability Surveys Using Propensity Score Adjustment," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 8(11), pages 1-14, November.
    3. Garcia Maria del Mar Rueda, 2023. "Book Review: Silvia Biffignandi and Jelke Bethlehem. Handbook of Web Surveys, 2nd edition. 2021 Wiley, ISBN: 978-1-119-37168-7, 624 pps," Journal of Official Statistics, Sciendo, vol. 39(4), pages 591-595, December.
    4. Luis Castro-Martín & Maria del Mar Rueda & Ramón Ferri-García, 2020. "Inference from Non-Probability Surveys with Statistical Matching and Propensity Score Adjustment Using Modern Prediction Techniques," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 8(6), pages 1-19, June.
    5. Ferri-García, Ramón & Castro-Martín, Luis & Rueda, María del Mar, 2021. "Evaluating Machine Learning methods for estimation in online surveys with superpopulation modeling," Mathematics and Computers in Simulation (MATCOM), Elsevier, vol. 186(C), pages 19-28.
    6. Maciej Berk{e}sewicz & Greta Bia{l}kowska & Krzysztof Marcinkowski & Magdalena Ma'slak & Piotr Opiela & Robert Pater & Katarzyna Zadroga, 2019. "Enhancing the Demand for Labour survey by including skills from online job advertisements using model-assisted calibration," Papers 1908.06731, arXiv.org.
    7. Luis Castro-Martín & María del Mar Rueda & Ramón Ferri-García & César Hernando-Tamayo, 2021. "On the Use of Gradient Boosting Methods to Improve the Estimation with Data Obtained with Self-Selection Procedures," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 9(23), pages 1-23, November.
    8. María del Mar Rueda & Sergio Martínez-Puertas & Luis Castro-Martín, 2022. "Methods to Counter Self-Selection Bias in Estimations of the Distribution Function and Quantiles," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 10(24), pages 1-19, December.
    9. Maria del Mar Rueda, 2019. "Comments on: Deville and Särndal’s calibration: revisiting a 25 years old successful optimization problem," TEST: An Official Journal of the Spanish Society of Statistics and Operations Research, Springer;Sociedad de Estadística e Investigación Operativa, vol. 28(4), pages 1077-1081, December.
    10. Nijsiree Vongariyajit & Sooksan Kantabutra, 2021. "A Test of the Sustainability Vision Theory: Is It Practical?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(14), pages 1-20, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsoctx:v:13:y:2023:i:4:p:90-:d:1113680. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.