TY - JOUR
T1 - The worst and the best
T2 - New insights into risk and resilience in young adults from the COVID-19 pandemic
AU - Shanahan, Lilly
AU - Johnson Ferguson, Lydia
AU - Loher, Michelle
AU - Steinhoff, Annekatrin
AU - Bechtiger, Laura
AU - Murray, Aja Louise
AU - Hepp, Urs
AU - Ribeaud, Denis
AU - Eisner, Manuel
N1 - Acknowledgements and funding statement: We are grateful to the young people who provided data for this study and to the fieldwork staff involved in the data collection. This analysis was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) grant #10531C_189008. The research reported in this manuscript was also financially supported by the SNSF as a research infrastructure (Grants #10FI14_170402/1; #10FI14_170402/2, #10FI14_198052), by the Jacobs Center for Productive Youth Development, and by the Jacobs Foundation (JF). The Zurich Project on the Social Development from Childhood to Adulthood is a long-term study initially set up by ME and DR. Earlier phases of the study (2003–2016) were funded by the SNF, the JF, the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health, the Department of Education of the Canton of Zurich, the Swiss State Secretariat of Migration and its predecessors, the Julius Bär Foundation, and the Visana Plus Foundation. Open access funding provided by University of Zurich.
PY - 2023/4/27
Y1 - 2023/4/27
N2 - Before the COVID-19 pandemic, young people’s mental health had begun to decline to historically low levels. In the face of this youth mental health crisis, the pandemic constituted a naturalistic stress paradigm that came with the potential to uncover new knowledge for the science of risk and resilience. Approximately 19-35% of people reported better well-being in the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic than before. Here, we asked N=517 young adults from a cohort study to describe the best and the worst aspects of their pandemic lives (May and September 2020; N=1,462 descriptions). Inductive thematic analysis revealed that the best aspects included the deceleration of life and a greater abundance of free time, which was used for hobbies, healthy activities, strengthening relationships, and for personal growth, and building resilience skills during the pandemic. Positive aspects also included a reduction in educational/work load and temporary relief from climate change concerns. The worst aspects included the disruptions and changes to daily life; social distancing and restrictions of freedoms; negative emotions that arose in the pandemic situation, including uncertainty about the future; and the growing polarization of society. Science that aims to reverse the youth mental health crisis must pay increased attention to sources of young people’s distress that are not commonly measured (e.g., their educational, work, and time pressures; their fears/uncertainties about their personal, society’s, and the global future), and also to the sources of well-being that young people identify for themselves – including when facing a historic new stressor.
AB - Before the COVID-19 pandemic, young people’s mental health had begun to decline to historically low levels. In the face of this youth mental health crisis, the pandemic constituted a naturalistic stress paradigm that came with the potential to uncover new knowledge for the science of risk and resilience. Approximately 19-35% of people reported better well-being in the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic than before. Here, we asked N=517 young adults from a cohort study to describe the best and the worst aspects of their pandemic lives (May and September 2020; N=1,462 descriptions). Inductive thematic analysis revealed that the best aspects included the deceleration of life and a greater abundance of free time, which was used for hobbies, healthy activities, strengthening relationships, and for personal growth, and building resilience skills during the pandemic. Positive aspects also included a reduction in educational/work load and temporary relief from climate change concerns. The worst aspects included the disruptions and changes to daily life; social distancing and restrictions of freedoms; negative emotions that arose in the pandemic situation, including uncertainty about the future; and the growing polarization of society. Science that aims to reverse the youth mental health crisis must pay increased attention to sources of young people’s distress that are not commonly measured (e.g., their educational, work, and time pressures; their fears/uncertainties about their personal, society’s, and the global future), and also to the sources of well-being that young people identify for themselves – including when facing a historic new stressor.
KW - COVID-19
KW - protective factors
KW - risk
KW - resilience
KW - young adulthood
U2 - 10.1007/s42844-023-00096-y
DO - 10.1007/s42844-023-00096-y
M3 - Article
SN - 2662-2416
JO - Adversity and Resilience Science
JF - Adversity and Resilience Science
ER -