Spanish adolescents’ and young adults’ coping strategies under severe lock-down due to COVID-19: a dialogical research study

Abstract

BackgroundDuring spring of 2020, millions of young adults throughout the world were sent home as a measure to contain the spread of COVID-19. In March 2020, Madrid became the city of the world with the highest incidence and mortality rates. By applying a phenomenological approach, this study aimed at gaining in-depth understanding of the subjective mental health experiences lived by Spanish young adults.Methodsdialogical research was used to interact with AYA and young adults. AYA were recruited using the network of networks and snowball strategies. 36 were initially contacted and 35 decided to participate. All participants were informed of their right to stop the dialogue at any time without providing any further explanation to the researcher, and were informed of the data protection rules of the University of Copenhagen. All signed an informed consent. The 35 dialogues were held online using Zoom, recorded and saved in a secured folder.. The dialogues lasted on average 55 minutes, were transcribed with Nvivo Transcription software. The sociological theory on Resonance was used to shape specific segments of the dialogues and to analysis the data.Results35 online dialogues with 20 adolescent girls and 15 adolescent boys aged from 17 to 23 were held from the second to the 28 of April 2020. The majority of youth did not leave their residences for 2 months. Three of them lost relatives due to COVID-19, one was admitted at the hospital and seven had relatives who contracted the disease. Different themes were brought up: 1) AYA' relations with their physical spaces and with time. 2) Relating with others. 3) Strategies to overcome sense of alienation, loss and fear and to re-find resonance. AYA living with chronic or mental diseases realized the importance of developing supportive habits and of adhering to treatments.ConclusionsDialogical research allowed youth to reflect upon their experiences and abilities to cope with the shock a provoked by COVID-19.