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Research article

Reflections, Resilience, and Recovery: A qualitative study of COVID-19's impact on an international adult population’s mental health and priorities for support

Authors
  • Keri Ka-Yee Wong orcid logo (Department of Psychology and Human Development, University College London, London, UK)
  • Kimberly Loke orcid logo (Department of Psychology and Human Development, University College London, London, UK)
  • Kyleigh Marie Kai-Li Melville orcid logo (Department of Psychology and Human Development, University College London, London, UK)

This is version 2 of this article, the published version can be found at: https://doi.org/10.14324/111.444/ucloe.000041

Abstract

The impact of the coronavirus 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic on different countries and populations is well documented in quantitative studies, with some studies showing stable mental health symptoms and others showing fluctuating symptoms. However, the reasons behind why some symptoms are stable and others change are under-explored, which in turn makes identifying the types of support needed by participants themselves challenging. To address these gaps, this study thematically analysed 925 qualitative responses from five open-ended responses collected in the UCL-Penn Global COVID Study between 17 April and 31 July 2021 (Wave 3). Three key themes that comprised 13 codes were reported by participants across countries and ages regarding the impact of Covid-19 on their health, both mental and physical, and livelihoods. These include: (1) Outlook on self/life, (2) Self-improvement, and (3) Loved ones (friends and family). In terms of support, while 2.91% did not require additional support, 91% wanted support beyond financial support. Other unexpected new themes were also discussed regarding vulnerable populations suffering disproportionately. The pandemic has brought into sharp focus various changes in people’s mental health, physical health and relationships. Greater policy considerations should be given to supporting citizens’ continued access to mental health when considering pandemic recovery.

Keywords: Covid-19, mental health, behavioural change, qualitative, financial burden, support

Rights: © 2022 The Authors.

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1Citations

Published on
01 Dec 2022
Peer Reviewed
License
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0

 Open peer review from Juliet Foster

Review

Review information

DOI:: 10.14293/S2199-1006.1.SOR-SOCSCI.AWT3UZ.v1.RRINYT
License:
This work has been published open access under Creative Commons Attribution License CC BY 4.0 , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Conditions, terms of use and publishing policy can be found at www.scienceopen.com .

ScienceOpen disciplines: Psychology
Keywords: Support , COVID-19 , Mental Health , Health , Behavioural Change , Financial Burden , Pandemic Recovery , Qualitative

Review text

This is an important topic. As the authors set out, there has been considerable work on responses to Covid, but less attention from a qualitative angle to the differences in experience and their implications both on an individual and sociocultural level. This paper therefore is both relevant and timely.

It is a well-written description of a largely well-designed study. However, I do have a few specific comments:

1. I am not sure that the results and discussion fully deliver on the intial promise of consideration of inequalities in experience of the pandemic. If they do, then it is only on quite a general level (some people fared better than others). Given the demographic information that was collected and the cross-cultural approach, I would like to see a more comprehensive consideration of the similarities and differences across groups.

2. The questions that were asked in the data collection were perhaps a little leading, and so in many ways I'm not particularly surprised that the results have grouped around the themes that they have - they do seem to map onto what was being probed. I think the presentation of one of the results as 'surprising' adds a bit to this sense of finding what was expected, which is a bit of a concern. Of course some results will be expected, but local surprise would usually be seen as one of the quality indicators of qualitative research, and a way of us ensuring that we can have confidence in what is being expressed.

3. Although a qualitative research project, the appproach to analysis of the data is fairly quantitative. There is no particular problem with this more structured quantitative analysis, but it does tend to result in a fairly small number of codes (which is of course often preferable when relying on inter-rater reliability) but there is perhaps a lack of richness to parts of the analysis, especially since we are told that many participants used the survey as an opportunity to write quite extensively about their experiences.



Note:
This review refers to round 1 of peer review.