Abstract:

Quarantines and other practices applied to prevent situations that threaten human life globally, like pandemic, can lead to physical and psychological problems associated with stress, as well as increased stress levels in individuals. The uncertainty of the pandemic process, quarantine and social distance practices, hygiene measures, fear of being infected, getting used to a new lifestyle and controlling the stress that occurs due to many other changes may become difficult. The level of consciousness of individuals is one of the important factors that influence them in controlling the stress they experience. It is known that there is a meaningful relationship between awareness and perceived stress. As individuals have reduced their level of consciousness, it becomes more difficult to cope with stressful situations. This study, conducted under the date of 08.09.2020 and permission number 110 of the Board of Scientific Research and Publishing Ethics of the University of Prague, aims to determine the views of young adults who remained in the house due to the COVID-19 pandemic on the basis of conscious awareness and stress control in the pandemic process. According to the quality research approach, this study conducted deep conversations with 20 young adults who remained at home due to the measures taken during the pandemic process. A semi-configured conversation form developed by researchers as a data collection tool has been used. The findings were analyzed in two main topics: stress control in the pandemic process and conscious awareness in the pandemic process. The findings are interpreted in seven sub-themes, including stress sources during the pandemic process, the effects of stress, stress control and the main focus in the pandemic process, emotional awareness, eating awareness, and automatic thoughts. As a result, it has been determined that individuals experience stress due to uncertainty of the process, as well as measures such as isolation applied to protect human health during the pandemic process, and that this stress has a negative impact on the levels of awareness. Individuals have been trying some methods to control stress and have been found to have no professional support in this process.