A Phenomenological Study of the Health-Based Lived Experience of the Youth of Sistan and Baluchestan in the COVID-19 Crisis

The emergence of the corona pandemic in various countries, including Iran, make changes both at the macro and structural levels and at the interpersonal interactions and micro-levels, including health-oriented behaviors of people. This research studied with a qualitative approach and descriptive phenomenology methodology the mental meaning and lived experience of the youth of Sistan and Baluchestan province of health in the first wave of the Covid-19 epidemic. The number of 40 youths from Sistan and Baluchestan selected by a purposive sampling method and information was collected using a semi-structured interview tool and analyzed by the Colaizzi method. The pattern of common themes resulting from the analysis of the health-centered lived experience of the youth of Sistan and Baluchestan during the Corona Crisis includes two main themes, four sub-themes, and 34 primary themes. The central theme of "Lack of social health responsibility and endangering public health" is derived from two sub-themes: "Negative reactions to health outbreaks in epidemics" and "Neglectful actions and disregard for collective health." Another prominent theme is the "Dissemination of a health-oriented lifestyle with the Covid-19 epidemic." This theme has emerged of two sub-themes: "Selecting health-oriented patterns in life" and "media influence and spreading health-oriented awareness." In the first wave, with the advent of the Covid-19 epidemic, young people experienced both the spectrum of social irresponsibility and the risk of collective infection to media consumption and a health-oriented lifestyle, which prevents social coherence for achieving collective health and relief from this crisis.