Gori Monica, Bertonati Giorgia, Mazzoni Emanuela, Freddi Elisa, Amadeo Maria Bianca
Unit for Visually Impaired People, Italian Institute of Technology, Genova, Italy.
DIBRIS, Università degli studi di Genova, Genova, Italy.
Front Psychol. 2022 Oct 28;13:897098. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.897098. eCollection 2022.
The COVID-19 pandemic caused unexpected and unavoidable changes in daily life worldwide. Governments and communities found ways to mitigate the impact of these changes, but many solutions were inaccessible to people with visual impairments. This work aimed to investigate how blind individuals subjectively experienced the restrictions and isolation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. To this end, a group of twenty-seven blind and seventeen sighted people took part in a survey addressing how COVID-19 impacted life practically and psychologically, how it affected their daily habits, and how it changed their experiences of themselves and others. Results demonstrated that both sighted and blind individuals had a hard time adapting to the new situation. However, while sighted people struggled more with personal and social aspects, the frustration of the blind population derived mostly from more practical and logistical issues. Likely as consequences, results showed that blind people engaged more in their inner life and experienced fear and anger as main emotions. This study suggests that changes in life associated with COVID-19 have been subjectively experienced differently based on the presence or not of blindness, and that tailored future interventions should be considered to take care of the different needs of blind individuals.
新冠疫情给全球日常生活带来了意想不到且不可避免的变化。各国政府和社区都在设法减轻这些变化带来的影响，但许多解决方案视障人士却无法采用。这项研究旨在调查盲人如何主观体验新冠疫情造成的限制和隔离。为此，27名盲人和17名视力正常者参与了一项调查，内容涉及新冠疫情如何在实际生活和心理层面影响生活，如何影响他们的日常习惯，以及如何改变他们对自己和他人的认知。结果表明，视力正常者和盲人都很难适应新情况。然而，视力正常者在个人和社交方面遇到的困难更多，而盲人的挫折感大多源于更实际的后勤问题。结果可能显示，盲人更多地沉浸在内心世界，主要情绪是恐惧和愤怒。这项研究表明，与新冠疫情相关的生活变化，视障与否会带来不同的主观体验，未来应考虑采取针对性的干预措施，以照顾盲人的不同需求。
