Abstract
Although the COVID-19 pandemic ended as a global health emergency, its psychosocial legacy persists in many communities. This study examines how religion and spirituality support recovery in Indonesia and Pakistan by shaping crisis narratives. Faith-based language is treated as psychosocial data and interpreted through its functions in meaning-making, emotion regulation, social connection, value anchoring, and action commitment using Psycho-Spiritual Transformation (PST) as a guiding framework. Open-ended responses were collected from 274 participants via an online survey in July 2021 (Indonesia n = 236; Pakistan n = 38). Across both contexts, narratives typically moved from pressure and inner conflict toward spiritual and relational reassurance and then toward renewed ethical orientation and practical commitments, including prosocial intentions and health-protective behaviors. The overall pattern was broadly similar across these two countries, indicating a shared faith-based meaning reconstruction grammar in highly religious societies. However, the Indonesian narratives more often combined diverse coping elements and translated faith into practical commitments, whereas the Pakistani narratives more strongly emphasized spiritual and relational reassurance. The findings highlight PST as a useful lens for distinguishing supportive faith discourse from forms of resignation that may hinder adaptive coping.
Bahasa Abstract
Meskipun pandemi COVID-19 telah berakhir sebagai kedaruratan kesehatan global, warisan psikososialnya masih dirasakan oleh banyak komunitas. Studi ini menelaah bagaimana agama dan spiritualitas mendukung pemulihan dengan membentuk narasi krisis di Indonesia dan Pakistan dengan kerangka Psycho-Spiritual Transformation (PST). Bahasa berbasis iman diperlakukan sebagai data psikososial dan ditafsirkan berdasarkan fungsinya dalam pemaknaan, regulasi emosi, keterhubungan sosial, penguatan nilai, dan komitmen tindakan. Respons naratif terbuka dikumpulkan melalui survei daring pada Juli 2021 dari 274 partisipan (Indonesia, n = 236; Pakistan, n = 38). Pada kedua konteks, narasi umumnya bergerak dari tekanan dan konflik batin menuju penguatan spiritual dan relasional, lalu berujung pada orientasi etis serta komitmen praksis, termasuk niat prososial dan perilaku protektif kesehatan. Pola umum ini relatif serupa di kedua negara tersebut, yang menunjukkan adanya tata-bahasa bersama dalam rekonstruksi makna berbasis iman pada masyarakat religius. Namun, narasi Indonesia lebih sering menggabungkan beragam elemen coping dan menerjemahkan iman ke dalam komitmen praktis, sedangkan narasi Pakistan lebih menekankan penguatan teologis dan relasional. Temuan ini menegaskan PST sebagai lensa yang membantu membedakan wacana iman yang mendukung pemulihan dari bentuk-bentuk kepasrahan yang berpotensi menghambat coping adaptif.
References
Ahmad, S. S., Goodman, Z. T., Hylton, E., & Ironson, G. (2025). “Which comes first”: Religious/spiritual engagement or health? Initial observations from longitudinal analyses. PLoS ONE, 20(5 May), 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0320410
Anderson, M. R., Scalora, S. C., Crete, A., Mistur, E. J., & Miller, L. (2023). Physiological recovery from stress is associated with spiritual recovery: Findings from awakened awareness, a college-based spiritual-mind-body intervention. Integrative Medicine Reports, 2(1), 129–137. https://doi.org/10.1089/imr.2023.0026
Banha, F., Flores, A., & Coelho, L. S. (2022). Quantitizing qualitative data from semi-structured interviews: A methodological contribution in the context of public policy decision-making. Mathematics, 10(19). https://doi.org/10.3390/math10193597
Bartkowski, J. P., Klee, K., Hill, T. D., Garcia-Alexander, G., Ellison, C. G., & Burdette, A. M. (2023). Fear God, not COVID-19: Is conservative protestantism associated with risky pandemic lifestyles? Healthcare, 11(4), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare11040582
Bell, I. H., Nicholas, J., Broomhall, A., Bailey, E., Bendall, S., Boland, A., Robinson, J., Adams, S., McGorry, P., & Thompson, A. (2023). The impact of COVID-19 on youth mental health: A mixed methods survey. Psychiatry Research, 321, 3–7. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2023.115082
Bulled, N., & Singer, M. (2024). Conceptualizing COVID-19 syndemics: A scoping review. Journal of Multimorbidity and Comorbidity, 14, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1177/26335565241249835
Card, K. G. (2022). Collectivism, individualism and COVID-19 prevention: a cross sectional study of personality, culture and behavior among Canadians. Health Psychology and Behavioral Medicine, 10(1), 415–438. https://doi.org/10.1080/21642850.2022.2069571
Carey, L. B., Kumar, S., Goyal, K., & Ali, F. (2023). A bibliometric analysis of the Journal of Religion and Health: Sixty years of publication (1961–2021). Journal of Religion and Health, 62(1), 8–38. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-022-01704-4
Chen, C., Frey, C. B., & Presidente, G. (2021). Culture and contagion: Individualism and compliance with COVID-19 policy. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 190, 191–200. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2021.07.026
Cheng, C., & Ying, W. (2023). A meta-analytic review of the associations between dimensions of religious coping and psychological symptoms during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 14(January), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1097598
Chentsova-Dutton, Y., & Maercker, A. (2019). Cultural scripts of traumatic stress: Outline, illustrations, and research opportunities. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 2528. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02528
Cofie N, Braund H, Dalgarno N. (2022). Eight ways to get a grip on intercoder reliability using qualitative-based measures. Canadian Medical Education Journal. 13(2) 73-76. https://doi.org/10.36834/cmej.72504
Cohen, F., Sugianto, A., Pols, H., & Bayetti, C. (2024). Conceptualizing recovery from mental illness in indonesia: A scoping review. Makara Human Behavior Studies in Asia, 28(2), 64–81. https://doi.org/10.7454/hubs.asia.1310524
Darmayanti, K. K. H., Winata, E. Y., & Anggraini, E. (2020). Why can other people live normally while I cannot?: An application of telecounseling due to COVID-19. Makara Human Behavior Studies in Asia, 24(2), 109. https://doi.org/10.7454/hubs.asia.1140920
David, A. B., Park, C. L., Awao, S., Vega, S., Zuckerman, M. S., White, T. F., & Hanna, D. (2023). Religiousness in the first year of COVID-19: A systematic review of empirical research. Current Research in Ecological and Social Psychology, 4(100075), 1–12. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cresp.2022.100075
de Diego-Cordero, R., Ávila-Mantilla, A., Vega-Escaño, J., Lucchetti, G., & Badanta, B. (2022). The role of spirituality and religiosity in healthcare during the COVID-19 pandemic: An integrative review of the scientific literature. Journal of Religion and Health, 61(3), 2188–2190. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-022-01549-x
Ford, B. Q., & Mauss, I. B. (2015). Culture and emotion regulation. Current Opinion in Psychology, 3(June), 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2014.12.004
Gao, J., Raza, S. H., Yousaf, M., Shah, A. A., Hussain, I., & Malik, A. (2023). How does digital media search for COVID-19 influence vaccine hesitancy? Exploring the trade-off between Google trends, infodemics, conspiracy beliefs and religious fatalism. Vaccines, 11(1), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines11010114
Gelfand, M. J., Jackson, J. C., Pan, X., Nau, D., Pieper, D., Denison, E., Dagher, M., Van Lange, P. A. M., Chiu, C. Y., & Wang, M. (2021). The relationship between cultural tightness–looseness and COVID-19 cases and deaths: a global analysis. The Lancet Planetary Health, 5(3), e135–e144. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2542-5196(20)30301-6
Hamka, Suen, M. W., Ramadhan, Y. A., Yusuf, M., & Wang, J. H. (2022). Spiritual well-being, depression, anxiety, and stress in Indonesian muslim communities during COVID-19. Psychology Research and Behavior Management, 15, 3013–3025. https://doi.org/10.2147/PRBM.S381926
Hammack, P. L. (2008). Narrative and the cultural psychology of identity. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 12(3), 222–247. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868308316892
Howard, A. H., Roberts, M., Mitchell, T., & Wilke, N. G. (2023). The relationship between spirituality and resilience and well-being: A study of 529 care leavers from 11 nations. Adversity and Resilience Science, 4(2), 186–187. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42844-023-00088-y
Jimenez, T., Restar, A., Helm, P. J., Cross, R. I., Barath, D., & Arndt, J. (2020). Fatalism in the context of COVID-19: Perceiving coronavirus as a death sentence predicts reluctance to perform recommended preventive behaviors. SSM - Population Health, 11, 100615. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2020.100615
Krok, D., Zarzycka, B., & Telka, E. (2021). Religiosity, meaning-making and the fear of COVID-19 affecting well-being among late adolescents in Poland: A moderated mediation model. Journal of Religion and Health, 60(5), 3265–3281. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-021-01375-7
Leong, S., Eom, K., Ishii, K., Aichberger, M. C., Fetz, K., Müller, T. S., Kim, H. S., & Sherman, D. K. (2022). Individual costs and community benefits: Collectivism and individuals’ compliance with public health interventions. PLoS ONE, 17(11 November), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0275388
Lu, J. G., Jin, P., & English, A. S. (2021). Collectivism predicts mask use during COVID-19. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 118(23), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2021793118
Mamani-Benito, O., Farfán-Solís, R., Huayta-Meza, M., Tito-Betancur, M., Morales-García, W. C., & Tarqui, E. E. A. (2023). Effect of religious fatalism and concern about new variants on the acceptance of COVID-19 vaccines. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 14(March), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1071543
Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psychological Review, 98(2), 224–253. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721413475622
McAdams, Dan P, & McLean, Kate C. (2013). Narrative Identity. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 22(3), 233–238. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721413475622
Mistur, E. J., Crete, A. A., Scalora, S. C., Anderson, M. R., Chapman, A. L., & Miller, L. (2025). Awakened awareness online: Results from an open trial of a spiritual–mind–body wellness intervention for remote undergraduate students. Psychology International, 7(2), 32. https://doi.org/10.3390/psycholint7020032
Mistur, E. J., Scalora, S. C., Crete, A. A., Anderson, M. R., Athan, A. M., Chapman, A. L., & Miller, L. J. (2022). Inner peace in a global crisis: A case study of supported spiritual individuation in acute onset phase of COVID-19. Emerging Adulthood (Print), 10(6), 1543–1560. https://doi.org/10.1177/21676968221111965
Pankowski, D., & Wytrychiewicz-Pankowska, K. (2023). Turning to religion during COVID-19 (Part I): A systematic review, meta-analysis and meta-regression of studies on the relationship between religious coping and mental health throughout COVID-19. Journal of Religion and Health, 62, 515–528. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-022-01703-5
Park, C. L. (2022). Meaning making following trauma. In Frontiers in Psychology (Vol. 13, Number March). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.844891
Prakosa, H., & Widyarini, N. (2021). Connectedness: an interdisciplinary approach in response to the Covid-19 pandemic (learning from Ki Ageng Suryomentaram, Ibn ‘Arabī and Teilhard de Chardin). Culture and Religion, 22(4), 379–397. https://doi.org/10.1080/14755610.2023.2282637
Riessman, C. K. (2008). Narrative Methods for the Human Sciences. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Sridhar, S., Chicz, R. M., Warren, W., Tartaglia, J., Savarino, S., Gurunathan, S., & Toussaint, J. F. (2022). The potential of Beta variant containing COVID booster vaccines for chasing Omicron in 2022. Nature Communications, 13(1), 2. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-33549-6
Tassell-Matamua, N. A., & Frewin, K. E. (2019). Psycho-spiritual transformation after an exceptional human experience. Journal of Spirituality in Mental Health, 21(4), 237–258. https://doi.org/10.1080/19349637.2018.1481487
World Health Organization. (2023a). COVID-19 epidemiological update – 22 December 2023. In World Health Organization (Number December 2023). https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/covid-19-epidemiological-update---22-december-2023
World Health Organization. (2023b). With the international public health emergency ending, WHO/Europe launches its transition plan for COVID-19. https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/12-06-2023-with-the-international-public-health-emergency-ending--who-europe-launches-its- transition-plan-for-covid-19
Yang, Z., Ji, L.-J., Yang, Y., Wang, Y., Zhu, L., & Cai, H. (2021). Meaning making helps cope with COVID-19: A longitudinal study. Personality and Individual Differences, 174, 110670. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2021.110670
Yılmaz, F. K., Koca, Z., & Kunduracılar, Z. (2024). The psychological and social experiences of hospitalised COVID-19 patients: a qualitative study. Makara Human Behavior Studies in Asia, 29(1). https://doi.org/10.7454/hubsasia.v29.i1.1534
Recommended Citation
Prakosa, H., Widyarini, N., Utama, J., & Carlos, J. (2026). A Psycho-Spiritual Transformation in COVID-19 Crisis Narratives: A Comparative Study in Indonesia and Pakistan. Makara Human Behavior Studies in Asia, 30(2), 28-40. https://doi.org/10.7454/hubs.asia.v30.i2.1599
Included in
Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons, Social Psychology Commons