Quality of place as the winner of the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of quality of life. Will this knowledge strengthen the development of geographical psychology?

Abstract

The paper is focused on the third wave of the pandemic and its comparison with the first wave in terms of the quality of life of university students in Czechia. In the first wave, the society came together, with solidarity being a prominent manifestation. The third wave differed from the first one in medical (vaccination was already available) as well as social terms. The paper has two objectives, the first is to measure the quality of life and related variables in the third wave of the pandemic and to compare the values found in the third wave with those in the first wave of the pandemic. The second objective is to identify which of the factors related to quality of life are predictors of that quality. The hypothesis assumes different measured values of quality of life for men and women. The measurement yielded knowledge of the high value of quality of place and environmental quality, which can enrich the quality of life epistemology on the one hand and geographical psychology on the other. Trust, health, happiness, quality of place, and safety were identified as factors. The measurement revealed the finding of different quality of life values in the third and first wave of the pandemic. While quality of life values increased in the first wave compared to the pre-pandemic period, both quality of life values and factors decreased in the third wave compared to the first wave. The only exception was one factor that we consider to be a winner of the third wave of the pandemic. The factor that declined in all measurements is considered to be the loser of the third wave of the pandemic. The paper concludes with implications derived from these findings.