ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has created profound upheavals in today's society, accompanied by psychological effects. The discomfort experienced during the pandemic accompanied by the increased availability of time has offered many people the chance to reconnect with their spiritual dimension, which is considered a vital resource in managing the stress produced by the perception of risk to their health. This study addresses the motivations that led research participants to choose to receive spiritual support via a 10-week training. The work also explores the changes perceived by the participants as they overcame the difficulties resulting from the pandemic. The research involved nine people between the ages of 19 and 59 who took part in an online experience focused on the spiritual dimension. Almost all the participants came from an area in Northern Italy most affected by the pandemic. A qualitative research design was used, with semistructured interviews designed to understand participants' views on the topic under investigation. The areas that emerged from the interviews concerned the motivations that led the participants to choose a spiritual support process, the role of spirituality in daily life, and the changes participants experienced after the conclusion of the experience related to managing the stress caused by the pandemic. In agreement with the existing literature, the results show that spiritual support can be useful in counteracting the negative effects of the pandemic, producing improvements in the quality of life.
ABSTRACT
The systematic removal of death from social life in the West has exposed people living in areas affected by COVID-19 to the risk of being unable to adequately manage the anxiety caused by mortality salience. Death education is a type of intervention that helps people manage their fear of death by offering them effective strategies to deal with loss and anxiety. To that end, a path of death education has been carried out with University students of psychology. The main purpose of the research is to understand how students who participated in the death education course perceive the lockdown experience in light of course teachings. The research was carried out at a University in northern Italy in an area severely affected by COVID-19, during the first year of the pandemic. The group of participants included 38 students, 30 women and 8 men, with an average age of 25.45 years (SD = 7). At the end of the course, the students could respond on an optional basis to the request to comment on the training experience according to what they experienced during the pandemic. A thematic analysis was subsequently carried out on the texts, which made it possible to identify the most relevant thematic areas for the students. The qualitative analyses permitted recognition of three main forms of discovery: the removal of death in contemporary culture; the importance of community, ritual and funeral, and spirituality; and the significance of death education for future health professionals. The texts have highlighted how the removal of these issues exposes people to the risk of being unable to handle extremely painful events such as those related to dying. The results show the positivity of death education pathways conducted at the University level to help students reflect on these issues and manage the related anguish.