"What I thought was so important isn't really that important": international perspectives on making meaning during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic

Irina Todorova; Liesemarie Albers; Nicole Aronson; Adriana Baban; Yael Benyamini; Sabrina Cipolletta; Maria Del Rio Carral; Elitsa Dimitrova; Claire Dudley; Mariana Guzzardo; Razan Hammoud; Darlina Hani Fadil Azim; Femke Hilverda; Qi Huang; Liji John; Michaela Kaneva; Sanjida Khan; Zlatina Kostova; Tatyana Kotzeva; M A Fathima; Milu Maria Anto; Chloé Michoud; Mohammad Abdul Awal Miah; Julia Mohr; Karen Morgan; Elena Simona Nastase; Efrat Neter; Yulia Panayotova; Hemali Patel; Dhanya Pillai; Manuela Polidoro Lima; Desiree Baolian Qin; Christel Salewski; K Anu Sankar; Sabrina Shao; Jeevanisha Suresh; Ralitsa Todorova; Silvia Caterina Maria Tomaino; Manja Vollmann; David Winter; Mingjun Xie; Sam Xuan Ning; Asya Zlatarska

doi:10.1080/21642850.2021.1981909

"What I thought was so important isn't really that important": international perspectives on making meaning during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic

Health Psychol Behav Med. 2021 Oct 11;9(1):830-857. doi: 10.1080/21642850.2021.1981909. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Irina Todorova¹, Liesemarie Albers², Nicole Aronson³, Adriana Baban⁴, Yael Benyamini⁵, Sabrina Cipolletta⁶, Maria Del Rio Carral⁷, Elitsa Dimitrova⁸, Claire Dudley⁹, Mariana Guzzardo¹⁰, Razan Hammoud⁶, Darlina Hani Fadil Azim¹¹, Femke Hilverda¹², Qi Huang¹³, Liji John¹⁴, Michaela Kaneva¹⁵, Sanjida Khan¹⁶, Zlatina Kostova¹⁷, Tatyana Kotzeva⁸, M A Fathima¹⁴, Milu Maria Anto¹⁴, Chloé Michoud⁷, Mohammad Abdul Awal Miah¹⁸, Julia Mohr², Karen Morgan¹⁹, Elena Simona Nastase⁴, Efrat Neter²⁰, Yulia Panayotova²¹, Hemali Patel²², Dhanya Pillai¹¹, Manuela Polidoro Lima²³, Desiree Baolian Qin¹³, Christel Salewski², K Anu Sankar¹⁴, Sabrina Shao³, Jeevanisha Suresh¹¹, Ralitsa Todorova²⁴, Silvia Caterina Maria Tomaino⁶, Manja Vollmann¹², David Winter²⁵, Mingjun Xie²⁶, Sam Xuan Ning¹¹, Asya Zlatarska²¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Applied Psychology, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA.
² Fakultät für Psychologie, Fernuniversität, Hagen, Germany.
³ Department of Health Sciences, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA.
⁴ Department of Psychology, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
⁵ Bob Shapell School of Social Work, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
⁶ Department of General Psychology, Università degli Studi di Padova, Padova, Italy.
⁷ Research Center for Psychology of Health, Aging and Sport Examination (PHASE), Institute of Psychology, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
⁸ Institute for Population and Human Studies, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria.
⁹ Department of Psychology, St. Lawrence University Canton, New York, NY, USA.
¹⁰ Department of Human Development and Women's Studies, California State University, East Bay, CA, USA.
¹¹ Perdana University Royal College of Surgeons School of Medicine (PURCSI), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
¹² Department of Socio-Medical Sciences, Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
¹³ Human Development and Family Studies, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA.
¹⁴ Department of Psychology, Prajyoti Niketan College, Thrissur, India.
¹⁵ Department of Clinical, Neuro-, and Developmental Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
¹⁶ Department of Psychology, Jagannath University, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
¹⁷ University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA, USA.
¹⁸ Centre for Research Excellence (PU-CRE), Perdana University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
¹⁹ School of Health Psychology, RCSI, Dublin, Ireland.
²⁰ Ruppin Academic Center, Emeq Hefer, Israel.
²¹ Health Psychology Research Center, Sofia, Bulgaria.
²² School of Pharmacy, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA.
²³ Hospital da Liga Norte Riograndense Against Cancer in Natal, and INSA Institute Prepares - CESAC, Natal, Brazil.
²⁴ Department of Psychology, City University of New York, New York, NY, USA.
²⁵ Centre for Research in Psychology and Sport Sciences, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, UK.
²⁶ Institute of Developmental Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.

Abstract

Background: The global COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the physical and mental health of people everywhere. The aim of the study is to understand how people living in 15 countries around the globe experience an unexpected crisis which threatens their health and that of loved ones, and how they make meaning of this disruption in their narratives.

Methods: Data were collected through an anonymous online survey during May-September 2020, which was during or just after the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, depending on the country. The questionnaire included demographic and three open-ended questions as prompts for stories about experiences during the initial months of the pandemic. The text was analyzed through inductive thematic content analysis and quantified for full sample description, demographic and subsequently international comparisons.

Results: The final qualitative dataset included stories from n = 1685 respondents. The sample was 73.6% women and 26.4% men. The mean age of participants was 39.55 years (SD = 14.71). The identified four groups of overarching themes were: The presence and absence of others; Rediscovering oneself; The meaning of daily life; Rethinking societal and environmental values. We discuss the prevalence of each theme for the sample as a whole and differences by demographic groups. The most prevalent theme referred to disruptions in interpersonal contacts, made meaningful by the increased appreciation of the value of relationships, present in (45.6%) of stories. It was more prevalent in the stories of women compared to men (χ² = 24.88, p = .001).

Conclusions: The paper provides a detailed overview of the methodology, the main themes identified inductively in the stories and differences according to select demographic variables. We identify several major ways of making meaning of the pandemic. The pandemic has impacted many aspects of people's lives which give it meaning, no matter where they live.

Keywords: COVID 19 pandemic; Cross-culture study; meaning making; mixed-methods research; thematic analysis.