1. Introduction
Migration is defined as the temporary or permanent leaving of individuals or communities from their places of residence for some reason [
1]. As a result of the anti-government protests in the Arab geography in late 2010 due to the events in the Middle East in recent years, a humanitarian crisis arose in Syria in March 2011 [
2]. This crisis first turned into a civil war in Syria and then an international issue affecting the region [
3]. With the effects of war in Syria, almost half of Syria’s total population migrated to neighboring countries, especially Turkey. Turkey had an open-door policy in this process. For this reason, the number of refugees has increased rapidly every day. According to June 2021 data of the Directorate General of Migration Management, there are 3,672,646 registered Syrians in Turkey [
4].
Due to migration, refugees face some difficulties. The most important of these difficulties are economic problems, health problems, and access to healthcare that refugees experience due to legal and physical barriers, adaptation problems that refugees experience due to language and cultural differences, and education problems [
5]. Another difficulty encountered by refugees is psychological problems [
6]. All difficulties refugees face in the migration process might cause stress on them [
7], and stress negatively affects individuals’ lives, reducing their life satisfaction. Life satisfaction is a concept related to individuals’ evaluation of how well they live according to their expectations [
8]. Therefore, individuals need coping mechanisms to reduce stress’ negative effects and increase their life satisfaction. One of the important mechanisms that refugees use to cope with their stressors during the migration process is social support networks [
9].
Social support networks consist of family, friends, relatives, and a special person who can support individuals and reduce their stress [
10]. Social support is too important, especially for refugees who migrated due to forced reasons such as war, political pressure, and fear of death [
11]. Since refugees who had to migrate have left behind many material and moral losses. After the psycho-social and economic difficulties experienced in the migration process, it is challenging to try to have a new life in a different country, but social support networks empower individuals in such situations and make them feel safe [
10]. In this context, social support networks often become prominent. However, refugees experiencing forced migration need not only social support but also social aids due to the financial losses they experience during the migration process [
12]. In the literature, social aids, which can be an important source of support for refugees, has not been examined as much as a social support network. For this reason, it is important to fill this gap in the literature to discuss the life satisfaction of refugees comprehensively.
Many factors that may create stress and anxiety in refugees were mentioned above. However, in addition to these, the COVID-19 pandemic must be mentioned. The COVID-19 pandemic affected many fields, such as medical, social, political, economic, etc., and has many outputs such as anxiety, stress, and depression [
13]. Therefore, it is important to discuss the coronavirus anxiety, which might affect refugees.
We started our study with a research question. This research question is: How do coronavirus anxiety and social aids affect the indirect effect of stress in the relationship between social support and life satisfaction? The research tried to understand the effect of coronavirus anxiety and social aids on the indirect effect of perceived stress in the relationship between social support and life satisfaction. Even though refugees use the social support mechanism to cope with stress, coronavirus anxiety is an important variable that may affect stress during the pandemic period. In addition, although it is known that stress reduces the life satisfaction of refugees, the role of getting social aid in the pandemic period has not been sufficiently investigated. For this reason, it is crucial to examine coronavirus anxiety and the role of social aids. In addition, investigating coronavirus anxiety and the role of social aids will contribute to understanding the refugees’ stress and life satisfaction during the COVID-19 pandemic.
2. Literature Review and Hypothesis Development
Migration is a challenging and multidimensional process. In this process, refugees might face psycho-social, economic, education, and health-related problems [
14]. These problems may create stress on refugees, and they may suffer a lot from the negativities of the process [
15]. The COVID-19 pandemic process might be given as an example of this situation. The COVID-19 crisis is a process that creates psychological effects on individuals [
16]. This process affects refugees negatively in psycho-social aspects. Stress, which is one of the negative effects, disrupts the harmony of individuals in the communication between people and the environment [
17]. Individuals encounter different sources of stress throughout their lives and develop other coping mechanisms. One of these coping mechanisms is social support. Social support consists of an individual’s social resources such as family, friends, and a special person [
18,
19]. Cobb [
20] mentions that social support makes individuals feel respected and valued. In addition, it helps individuals feel better and try different ways to cope with stress [
21]. In this context, the following hypotheses were developed to examine the effect of social support on perceived stress:
Hypothesis 1 (H1). Family (a), friend (b), and special person (c) support have a negative effect on perceived stress.
According to the ecological system theory, one of the environments in which the individual interacts is the micro-environment. The micro-environment consists of groups such as an individual’s family, relatives, friends, and peers. There is a constant interaction between the individual and individual’s environment, and this interaction ensures the system’s sustainability by being in balance. If this system cannot ensure a state of balance, it is not possible to mention the well-being and social functionality of the individual. One of the variables of this study is life satisfaction, which is a concept related to how people evaluate their own lives [
8]. Some determinants of life satisfaction are psychological well-being, having functionality, initiating and maintaining social relationships, and having social connections [
22]. If the balance of the micro-system of the individual is disturbed, the interaction with an individual’s close environment such as family, friends, and peers in the micro-system is damaged. Therefore, this situation may affect the individual’s life satisfaction by damaging the individual’s well-being, social functionality, and social relations. Situations that harm the individual’s well-being, functionality, and relationships may also create stress in the individual. The situations that cause stress in the individual are not only related to the balance of the micro-system but also include the situations that occur in the meso and macro environment of the individual. Any situation that causes stress in the individual may affect the life satisfaction of the individual. In this context, the following hypotheses were developed to examine the effect of perceived stress and social support on life satisfaction [
23,
24]:
Hypothesis 2 (H2). Perceived stress has a negative effect on life satisfaction.
Hypothesis 3 (H3). Family (a), friend (b), and special person (c) support have a positive effect on life satisfaction.
Social support sources, which are likely to contribute to life satisfaction, might also affect individuals’ stress states. In addition, stress sources that disrupt individuals’ adaptation might also reduce the quality of life of individuals [
25]. In this context, the hypotheses created to test the role of perceived stress in the relationship between social support and life satisfaction are as follows:
Hypothesis 4 (H4). Perceived stress has a mediator role on the effect of family (a), friend (b), and special person (c) support on life satisfaction.
Another factor that may affect the life satisfaction of individuals is the economic status of individuals. Frijters et al. [
26] mention the effect of economic status on life satisfaction in their study. Furthermore, it is well-recognized that refugees who suffer many financial losses and need help experience stress [
27]. For this reason, it is thought that social aids, which are related to individuals’ economic status, may take a role in the relationship between perceived stress and life satisfaction. In this context, the following hypothesis has been created:
Hypothesis 5 (H5). Getting social aid has a moderation role in the effect of perceived stress on life satisfaction.
As mentioned above, social support is one of the mechanisms for coping with stress. The individual, a social being, continues life by integrating with the social environment in every sphere of life. The support of family, friends, and a special person makes individuals feel stronger, improves their positive thoughts, and facilitates their problems. Therefore, individuals’ social support from their environment might affect the stress experienced by individuals [
28]. In addition to the issues brought about by migration, refugees are also exposed to various psycho-social effects of the COVID-19 process. COVID-19 significantly affects all segments of society and changes everyday life.
In addition, it causes some uncertainties by affecting everyday life and creates anxiety in individuals [
29]. In this context, the following hypotheses were developed to determine the role of coronavirus anxiety in the relationship between social support and perceived stress:
Hypothesis 6 (H6). Coronavirus anxiety has a moderation role in the effect of family (a), friend (b), special person (c) support on perceived stress.
In
Figure 1, the research model is shown in accordance with the hypotheses formed. The research model shows social support’s (family, special person, and friend support) direct effect on life satisfaction. Additionally, the mediator role of perceived stress between social support and life satisfaction relationship is also illustrated. The moderator role of COVID-19 anxiety in the relationship between social support and perceived stress is demonstrated. In addition, the moderator role of social aids in the relationship between perceived stress and life satisfaction is shown.
5. Discussion
In this study, the relationships among perceived social support, stress, life satisfaction, coronavirus anxiety, and social aids received by Syrian refugees living in Turkey were examined. Within the scope of these relationships, the roles of coronavirus anxiety, social aids, and perceived stress were investigated. Overall, the results showed that perceived stress mediated the relationship between social support sub-dimensions and life satisfaction. On the other hand, it was observed that coronavirus anxiety had a moderator role in the relationship between the sub-dimensions of social support (except special person support) and perceived stress, and social aids had a moderator role on the relationship between perceived stress and life satisfaction.
This study found that family support reduced stress. Family is vital for refugees, who often deal with extraordinary situations. A study carried out with North Korean refugees highlights that family support is a coping mechanism for negative situations [
37]. In another study conducted with Congolese refugees living in Australia, most participants reported that family support in coping with stress is essential [
38]. A study with Syrian refugees in Sweden found that higher social support was associated with lower post-traumatic stress disorder [
39]. The results of the studies in the literature support this finding of this study. However, contrary to expectations in this study, we discovered that special person support increases stress. We also found that the effect of friend support on stress was insignificant. These findings do not match with the results of other studies in the literature [
40,
41].
This study found that family and friend support increases life satisfaction. A study conducted with refugees in Turkey revealed that when the social support increases, refugees’ life satisfaction increases as well [
42]. In another study on social support and life satisfaction with refugee women in South Korea, women who received higher levels of social support reported higher levels of life satisfaction [
43]. In addition, this study found that stress reduces life satisfaction. There is a negative relationship between individuals’ stress and their life satisfaction [
44]. A study on North Korean refugees discovered that stress negatively affects life satisfaction [
45].
Another study conducted with 590 Syrian refugees in Turkey reported that life satisfaction decreases as the level of post-trauma stress increases [
46]. The results of the studies in the literature support our findings. In addition, we discovered that stress has a mediator role in the relationship between family, friend, special person support, and life satisfaction. Refugees face many stressors due to the migration process. Therefore, it is essential to consider stress in the relationship between refugees’ social support and life satisfaction. However, while reviewing the literature, we could not find any other study in which stress has a mediator role between family, friend, special person support, and life satisfaction. This study contributes to the literature by addressing the mediator role of stress in the relationship between social support and life satisfaction, which has not been addressed before.
We found that coronavirus anxiety had a moderating effect on the relationship between family support and perceived stress.
Table 4 shows that family support reduces the stress of refugees. However, as seen in
Figure 2, if refugees have high coronavirus anxiety, family support is almost ineffective in reducing stress. This situation reveals that coronavirus anxiety is very important. In a study conducted with 739 Palestinians, some of whom live in the camp, 65% of the participants stated that their anxiety had increased since the beginning of the pandemic [
47]. Another study conducted with 18,171 people in 35 countries discovered that coronavirus anxiety increased people’s stress [
48]. These findings support the findings of our study. Therefore, although refugees use social support networks such as family support to cope with stress, the increasing coronavirus anxiety with the pandemic almost eliminates the effect of social support networks in reducing stress. For this reason, various precautions should be taken to minimize or even eliminate the impact of coronavirus anxiety. One of them might be the provision of mental health services. However, cultural and language barriers and increasing stigma prevent refugees from receiving these services [
49]. Therefore, to reduce or eliminate the coronavirus anxiety refugees, states should take measures to remove these barriers. Many considerations, such as virtual care and service delivery with interpreters, can be among these measures. We also found that coronavirus anxiety had a moderating effect on the relationship between friend support and perceived stress. However, while the level of coronavirus anxiety is high and moderate, the moderator effect is not significant. One unanticipated finding was that the moderating effect of coronavirus anxiety on the relationship between special person support and perceived stress was not statistically significant. Many studies in the literature examine the relationship between social support and perceived stress [
50,
51]. However, this study, carried out during the COVID-19 period, contributes to the literature by examining the role of coronavirus anxiety in the relationship between social support and perceived stress.
Finally, we also found that social aids had a moderating effect on the relationship between perceived stress and life satisfaction. As seen in
Table 4, stress reduces the life satisfaction of refugees. However, in
Figure 4, the decrease in life satisfaction of refugees who get social aids is much smaller than those who do not get social aids. Therefore, this situation shows how important social aids are in reducing the negative effect of stress (reducing the life satisfaction of refugees). Couch [
52], in his study, found that young refugees in Australia are often unemployed during the pandemic. In addition, young refugees stated that they were responsible for providing economic support to their families, but they could not do it when they lost their jobs. For this reason, young refugees also need economic support. Another study in Australia shows that refugees need social aids during the pandemic but cannot reach social aids due to misinformation and various barriers. It also stated that refugees could not be protected from the negative effects of COVID-19 if they did not get social aid [
53]. Therefore, the findings of these studies support our study. This finding of our study constitutes another important contribution to the literature by revealing that getting social aid during the pandemic period is very important for refugees.