During the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the COVIDiSTRESS Consortium launched an open-access global survey to understand and improve individuals’ experiences related to the crisis. A year later, we extended this line of research by launching a new survey to address the dynamic landscape of the pandemic. This survey was released with the goal of addressing diversity, equity, and inclusion by working with over 150 researchers across the globe who collected data in 48 languages and dialects across 137 countries. The resulting cleaned dataset described here includes 15,740 of over 20,000 responses. The dataset allows cross-cultural study of psychological wellbeing and behaviours a year into the pandemic. It includes measures of stress, resilience, vaccine attitudes, trust in government and scientists, compliance, and information acquisition and misperceptions regarding COVID-19. Open-access raw and cleaned datasets with computed scores are available. Just as our initial COVIDiSTRESS dataset has facilitated government policy decisions regarding health crises, this dataset can be used by researchers and policy makers to inform research, decisions, and policy.
On March 12, 2020, the Norwegian government put the country on lock‐down to get the COVID‐19 situation under control. Making people adhere to restrictive measures is difficult. Even so, the Norwegian government largely succeeded in getting the population to comply and became the first European country to announce control over the situation. In this study, we ask what narratives the government put forth in their communication of the measures and how these measures were handled and made sense of in personal narratives at the general population level. We base our discussion on near daily government press conferences in March–April, as well as qualitative interviews with 16 individuals. Using a cultural narrative perspective on the data, we tie these meta‐narratives and personal narratives together. Persuading people to comply with prevention and control measures in a crisis is crucial, and our study shows the importance of the selection of meta‐narratives. There will be cultural differences in governance and receptiveness of the population across different settings, and our study suggests that governments will have to balance where on different continua they place their COVID‐19 narratives, balancing freedom up against restrictions, hope against fear, and individualism against solidarity. Highlights Practitioners and policymakers need to be aware of the narratives they use to communicate COVID‐19 measures and how these fit with the overarching narratives in society. Using narratives that resonate as much as possible with people's personal narratives may aid meaning making and compliance. Practitioners also need to balance where on different continua they place their COVID‐19 narratives: balancing freedom against restrictions, hope against fear, and individualism against solidarity. The ideal placement of the narratives depends on culture and context. Ambiguously communicated messages make room for subjective interpretations in people's everyday lives, allowing for differing and conflicting personal narratives. Therefore, communication should be as concrete and consistent as possible.
On March 12, 2020, Norway went on lockdown to handle the COVID-19 outbreak. Near overnight, people faced a new and unfamiliar situation, with restrictive measures in place, extensive uncertainty and the closing down of much of society. The present study explores the meaning-making and coping in everyday life of 16 participants interviewed early in the pandemic. Norway, compared to many other settings in the world, is a privileged context. Nonetheless, participants struggled with this breach with their normal lives. The participants spoke of adapting to the new normal, how the concept of time had changed, how they handled socialisation, dealing with restricted freedom, and imagining the future. Actively drawing on communal coping, as well as problem-focused and emotion-focused individual coping strategies, participants’ accounts illustrate the on-going process of making meaning of their new lives under lockdown. In our discussion, we synthesise various coping processes that the participants made use of in their handling of the new situation. Even though the COVID-19 pandemic is a shared stressor, it influences people differently, and our research contributes with valuable insights into this variation. The recognition of different meaning-making and coping strategies is crucial, as it can constructively inform the development of political and social responses to the pandemic that actively encompasses the variation in individual experiences and ramifications.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.