Risk and Resilience in Young Adults During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Switzerland

• In Event: Poster Session 12
  In Poster Session: PS 12 Topic - Solicited Content: COVID-19 Related

Abstract

The field of risk and resilience research has spent decades researching factors that improve the lives of young people facing risks (e.g., Masten, 2001; Werner, 1993), generating important insights. Nevertheless, recent decades have seen declines in adolescents’ and young adults’ mental well-being, at least in the developed world (Keyes et.al., 2019; Twenge et.al., 2019).

In the midst of these ongoing trends, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic came with abrupt changes to life as we knew it. Psychological COVID-19 research has primarily aimed to document during-pandemic declines in mental health. An unexpected finding has, however, emerged: Some people reported feeling better during than before the COVID-19 lockdown (de Quervain et al., 2020). For example, in the current study of young adults in a large Swiss city, 18.7% reported feeling notably better 3-4 weeks into the Spring 2020 lockdown compared to before, 50.8% reported feeling approximately the same, and only 30.5% reported feeling notably worse.

Our aim is to follow up these findings by 1) examining how these ratings of “feeling better/the same/worse” during compared to before the pandemic changed in Swiss young adults from April to September 2020, 2) identifying factors associated with the lockdown that helped young adults thrive, and 3) identifying factors during the lockdown that exacerbated psychological risks.

Data came from a prospective-longitudinal cohort study. The cohort comprises participants who entered first grade in one of 56 public primary schools in a large Swiss city in 2004. The original study consists of eight assessment waves, at ages 7, 8, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, and 20 (in 2018). In April 2020, all age 20 participants (then aged 22) were invited to participate in a COVID-19 online study. In total, four COVID-19 data collections, with up to N=786 participants, took place in mid-April, early May, late May, and mid-September 2020. At each of the four COVID-19 assessments, we assessed well-being using several multi-item scales, and open-comment fields allowed participants to report both positive and difficult experiences during the pandemic.

The current analyses will employ a mix of quantitative and qualitative data analysis techniques. For the qualitative component, thematic analyses (Braun & Clark) will be conducted using the Nvivo software to identify themes of resilience and risk. Because of the lack of previous qualitative studies investigating risk and resilience factors in young people during the COVID-19 pandemic, an inductive, bottom-up approach will be used to generate codes, which will then be ordered into broader themes. Thematic analysis will be used because it allows for the identification of key themes in large bodies of data, for the generation of unanticipated insights, and for the identification of similarities as well as differences across a dataset.

Given the decreases in adolescents’ and young adults’ mental well-being in recent decades, new insights are needed regarding factors that can foster well-being among young people. Findings from this COVID-19 study may have important implications for informing preventions and interventions aimed at increasing young people’s thriving during, after and independently of pandemics.

Authors

• Lydia Johnson-Ferguson, University of Zurich
  Presenting Author

• Lilly Shanahan, University of Zurich
  Non-Presenting Author

• Michelle Loher, University of Zurich
  Non-Presenting Author

• Annekatrin Steinhoff, University of Zurich
  Non-Presenting Author

• Laura Bechtiger, University of Zurich
  Non-Presenting Author

• Boris B. Quednow, University of Zurich
  Non-Presenting Author

• Denis Ribeaud, University of Zurich
  Non-Presenting Author

• Manuel Eisner, University of Cambridge
  Non-Presenting Author