The Psychosocial Challenges Experienced by African Widows During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Low-Resourced African Communities: A Scoping Review

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic was a traumatic experience that brought disruption to people’s lives and required intense changes to be made in a short period of time. The adversity and trauma that COVID-19 brought may have had a negative long-term impact on the lives of widows who lost their spouses during the pandemic, particularly in Africa. However, little attention has been paid to the psychosocial experiences that African widows have encountered post-COVID-19. The objective of this paper is therefore to report the findings of a scoping review that examined the psychosocial challenges that African widows experienced during COVID-19 in low-resourced communities. Eligible sources such as databases were systematically searched for articles published between 2019 and 2023 using keywords related to the challenges experienced by African widows in low-resourced communities. Initially, the database search produced 4021 records. After the screening process, exclusions were made, and the final number of articles eligible for inclusion in the study was four (n = 4). Sources were subject to quality appraisal and data were extracted in line with the review question. The findings suggest that COVID-19 disrupted the widows’ support systems, usually provided by their families, friends and fellow church congregants, which exacerbated the psychosocial challenges experienced by widows such as feelings of neglect, helplessness and stigmatization and restricted the customs and traditions that help with the healing process. This paper concludes by recommending that further research be carried out to improve interventions that enhance the healing processes associated with widowhood to address the psychosocial challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic in low-resourced communities.