The role of meaning of place on reducing stress caused by home quarantine of students

In recent years, due to changes in people's lifestyles and the emergence of staying at home and remote work, individuals are forced to spend a significant amount of time at home. For example, the prevalence of contagious diseases such as COVID-19 has led to long-term remote learning in schools. However, this trend has not only resulted in a decrease in academic performance among learners, but has also caused psychological disturbances such as post-traumatic stress and stress due to virtual learning in students. In studies conducted on the causes of these consequences, the quarantine environment of individuals (residential environment) has played the most important role in the emergence of these consequences. Therefore, examining the relationship of individuals with the quarantine environment becomes twice as important. It is necessary to review all factors affecting students in the quarantine environment and consider the importance of the home environment for individuals by examining environmental indicators that affect the individual. Therefore, considering the importance of the impact of the home environment on individuals, the present research aimed to elucidate stress-inducing factors in the residential environment of quarantined students, as well as to identify prominent components of meaningful manifestation effective in reducing the stress of quarantined individuals in the residential environment. The current qualitative (exploratory) study was conducted using a descriptive phenomenological approach. In this method, information was gathered from reliable sources and semi-structured interviews with students in Region (3) of Isfahan city, who were selected based on purposive sampling criteria, and sampling continued until reaching saturation. The findings were analyzed using the Colaizzi analysis method with the assistance of ATLAS.ti software, and the data were categorized and described. The research findings include 3 main themes and 11 sub-themes with 57 pieces of evidence. The results indicate that in order to reduce students' stress caused by home quarantine due to the spread of a disease and virtual education, considering the long duration of quarantine, it is possible to reduce individual stress by improving the sense of place in the environment and creating different environmental layers in space, multi-layering the environment, and better managing the long duration of quarantine.