The pandemic of COVID19 that has\nstricken humanity nowadays is considered the biggest and the most challenging\nviral infection ever that the world has had. It has become almost a year since\nthe first infection case was reported, and the society has yet to discover its antidote\nor any vaccine whatsoever. However, this is not the end of the world and the\npractice of curbing the pandemic infection so far has been focussing on educational\naspect and creating awareness in the society. This practice has become the prevalent\napproach adopted since the beginning of the first infection case and that it has\nbeen carried out with the noble intention of getting peoples\u2019 cooperation and\ncommitment in managing the infection. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\nis understood that such a pandemic is caused by a strain of virus known as\nSAR-CoV-2 and that it has a very high rate of infectivity and even fatal\nconsequences. This has been the reason why preventive measures, along with the long\nawaiting upcoming vaccine, are very important in controlling the infection.\nHowever, for the time being, the preventive measures have been to adopt the\nmost basic approach ever known to human beings and operating at the core of\neducational point of view. Believe it or not, this is what we understand as a\npsychosocial and behavioural perspective. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
What is\npsychosocial then, and why do we adopt such an approach in dealing with the\npandemic? The answer is simply that it is the most basic and closest kind of\napproach to human nature. In defining the nature of psychosocial construct, it\nhas been conceptualised as anything that relates to the socio-psychological\naspects or factors of human life that have some influence to how humans think\nand behave. Social factors are anything that are extrinsic, or outside of the human\npersonality and character, whereas psychological is something intrinsic and\ndependant on human personality and character, but both interact interdependently\nand are interrelated to each other. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dealing with the\nissues of the pandemic from the psychosocial perspective and approach are then\nunderstood as activating the power and capacity of human thinking and reasoning\nabilities and its behavioural consequences in curbing the infectivity of the\nvirus. To understand this approach further, we try to relate ourselves with\nwhat we have been practising nowadays by socially and physically distancing\nourselves from the crowds, always washing our hands and cover our mouths when coughing.\nThese are examples of preventive behavioural consequences that become the basis\nof the psychosocial perspective. Another example is when the Prophet Muhammad\nS.A.W was giving some advice in relation to the pandemic situation as\ntranslated in a Hadith which means, \u2018When\nyou hear that a plague is in a land, do not go to it and if it occurs in a land\nthat you are already in, then just stay on it (do not leave it, flee from it),\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n In other words,\nwe are actually capable of shielding and protecting ourselves from getting the\nvirus when we train our thoughts and reasoning capacities to behaviourally contain\nthe infection. Thus, for this purpose, how do we train our thoughts and\nreasoning faculty to be capable of getting rid of the virus, or how can our\nthoughts and behaviour make us so vulnerable to be infected?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Indeed, this is\nanother analogy within the perspective of the psychosocial paradigm. It is\nbelieved that at the thinking or cognitive level, what we think directs us in what\nwe do and what we feel, such as the saying goes we are what we think, and\nhence, we are what we eat. Our behaviour is a result of what we think and what\nwe think determines how we behave subsequently. What happens to the high\nincidence or spike in COVID19 infection rate recently is absolutely\nattributable to the thinking or cognitive fallacies that humans have which is\nknown as thinking or cognitive biases. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Thinking or\ncognitive bias is understood as some kind of systematic errors in thinking that\nhumans adopt when interpreting and processing information that they receive\nfrom the world and the surroundings. It is a short cut thinking process in\nmaking decisions and judgements in life that consequently determines one\u2019\nbehaviour. An example of cognitive bias is attention bias when one only pays\nattention to small portions of negativity and simultaneously ignoring the wide\nrange of positivity that exists and then starts to overgeneralise with the\nconclusion that their full life has been destined to be catastrophic, rather\nthan optimistic. The same principle also applies during the current pandemic\nsituation when someone may hold a belief that COVID19 is only a viral\ninfection, just like any other flu infection and therefore, they simply ignore any\nspecific related safety measure that targets the new strain of virus. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In conclusion, the\npsychosocial perspective holds the belief that the COVID19 pandemic is actually\nabout human psychological and behavioural accommodation process in dealing with\nthe viral infection, and not merely about the illness or the virus itself. It\nis about how humans can use their faculty of reasoning and safety behaviour in\nmanaging the illness and containing the infection, because mental health is\nbelieved to be the next pandemic in relation to COVID19. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The pandemic of COVID19 that has stricken humanity nowadays is considered the biggest and the most challenging viral infection ever that the world has had. It has become almost a year since the first infection …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_analytify_skip_tracking":false,"_wpzoom_pinterest_image_url":"","_wpzoom_pinterest_hidden_image":"0","_wpzoom_pinterest_description":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[139],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-straits-times","category-139","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28300\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}