Exploring factors affecting the community participation in the management of the Covid-19 crisis

Background and Object: 

Considering the high prevalence of covid-19 in the Iran and generally in Mazandaran province, the most important strategy for managing the crisis is the participation of citizens in different dimensions. Therefore, the present study was conducted with the aim of identifying and analyzing the factors affecting the level of community participation in the management of the Covid-19 crisis, which can be a road map for future planning in managing similar crises.

The present study was performed with a qualitative approach using content analysis by the conventional method in Mazandaran province. The data were collected through in depth semi structured interviews with 34 participants through a purposeful sampling method and analyzed simultaneously.

From data analysis, 3 main themes including 1) beliefs and attitudes with 3 sub-themes of perceived threat, perceived fear and anxiety, and perceived self-efficacy, 2) the main theme of drivers/facilitators with 9 sub-themes of informing, culture building and networking, capacity building/ jihadi and voluntary actions, inter-sectoral coordination, social trust, social responsibility, social resilience, compensatory/financial policies of the government and strategies for changing processes and policies in crisis management, and 3) and the main theme of barriers and challenges of community participation with 5 sub-themes of psychological challenges, social/cultural challenges, economic challenges, health challenges and management challenges is extracted.

The themes discovered based on the viewpoints of the Mazandarani citizens obtained valuable information about the factors affecting the level of community participation in the management of the Covid-19 crisis, which can be taken into account in planning and preventive measures.