Identifying Social Perceptions of People Ignoring COVID-19 warnings: A Qualitative Study in Iran

Abstract Objective:The coronavirus pandemic has had various impacts on people's social life and daily activities in most countries around the world, including Iran. Hygiene precautions like masking and social distancing have been suggested in order to reduce the spread of the COVID- 19 virus. There are, however, individuals in society who do not consider and ignore these health issues. The present study aims to identify the sociological perceptions of people who ignore the warnings about coronavirus infection. The qualitative research was carried out from May till July 2020. The interviewees were purposefully selected from among the individuals who avoided paying attention to coronavirus warnings in Isfahan. In 20 semi-structured interviews saturation point was obtained. The thematic analysis approach was used with MAXQDA software (version 12) to interpret the transcribed documents.Results: The results showed 2 themes and 4 subtopics related to the sociological perceptions of people who ignored warnings about Corona. Themes and subtopics included: feelings of social anomie (disruption and social unrest, social distrust), unmet social relationship needs (intention to maintain social participation, Feeling of reduced social support). The findings indicate that, in order to tackle social perceptions contrary to health observance during the coronavirus epidemic, educational resources such as mass media, cyberspace and social programs on the necessity and importance of health observance need to be used. Policies should also be implemented in the social, cultural and legislative contexts to enhance the degree of individuals ' social responsibility for each other's health.