Psychological Consequences of COVID-19 in Sub-Saharan Africa (on example of Tanzania and Nigeria)

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of human behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic in two African countries – Tanzania and Nigeria. Using our own field data, the authors analyzed the dynamics of the level of anxiety on the background of stress from the spread of COVID-19 during two large waves of the pandemic: 1) from May to August 2020 with an average peak on May 11; 2) from June to September 2021. The total sample was 1034 people. One of the authors’ hypotheses was that different control strategies in these countries led to different levels of stress in the population. The most important factor was not only the level of morbidity and mortality in the country, but also the lack of information and misinformation. Using the example of the two African countries, it is shown that misinformation, concealment of official statistics and fear of uncertainty led to an increase in anxiety among the population of Tanzania and slowed down the psychological adaptation of people in the context of a global crisis, observed in many countries around the world a year after the spread of coronavirus infections.