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A qualitative study of university students’ perspectives of hope during the COVID-19 pandemic

BACKGROUND: Students in higher education commonly experience mental health problems. There is an ongoing need to explore potential intervention targets to focus on mental health promotion among students. Hopefulness may alleviate or be protective against various negative mental health conditions suc...

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Autores principales: Keshoofy, Aria, Lisnyj, Konrad, Pearl, David L, Thaivalappil, Abhinand, Papadopoulos, Andrew
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: SAGE Publications 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10366665/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37497535
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/20503121231185014
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author Keshoofy, Aria
Lisnyj, Konrad
Pearl, David L
Thaivalappil, Abhinand
Papadopoulos, Andrew
author_facet Keshoofy, Aria
Lisnyj, Konrad
Pearl, David L
Thaivalappil, Abhinand
Papadopoulos, Andrew
author_sort Keshoofy, Aria
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Students in higher education commonly experience mental health problems. There is an ongoing need to explore potential intervention targets to focus on mental health promotion among students. Hopefulness may alleviate or be protective against various negative mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety, suicide, and trauma-related disorders. OBJECTIVE: To explore postsecondary students’ meanings and experiences of hope during the COVID-19 pandemic and identify factors affecting hopefulness during crises. METHODS: Purposive sampling was used to recruit participants for online semi-structured interviews in a university located in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis. RESULTS: In total, 12 participants were interviewed, and 4 themes were generated: (1) hope is a complex concept with an associated set of behaviors, (2) cognitive framing of hope as a means of student resilience, (3) COVID-19 as an antagonist which amplifies preexisting student concerns and issues, and (4) the social and physical environments serve as barriers and enablers to hope and well-being. Hope was perceived as a positive mental trait, external events and the environment were reported to impact hope, and those who were generally more hopeful adjusted better mentally when unexpected circumstances arose. CONCLUSIONS: Findings shed light on the interconnectedness and complex nature of hope, its sources, and enablers. Novel findings include the ways in which hope was affected during the COVID-19 pandemic. Recommendations for individual- and community-based interventions include targeting enablers to hopefulness by promoting social support systems, offering virtual extracurricular activities, and delivering alternative approaches to teaching and learning.
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spelling pubmed-103666652023-07-25 A qualitative study of university students’ perspectives of hope during the COVID-19 pandemic Keshoofy, Aria Lisnyj, Konrad Pearl, David L Thaivalappil, Abhinand Papadopoulos, Andrew SAGE Open Med Original Research Article BACKGROUND: Students in higher education commonly experience mental health problems. There is an ongoing need to explore potential intervention targets to focus on mental health promotion among students. Hopefulness may alleviate or be protective against various negative mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety, suicide, and trauma-related disorders. OBJECTIVE: To explore postsecondary students’ meanings and experiences of hope during the COVID-19 pandemic and identify factors affecting hopefulness during crises. METHODS: Purposive sampling was used to recruit participants for online semi-structured interviews in a university located in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis. RESULTS: In total, 12 participants were interviewed, and 4 themes were generated: (1) hope is a complex concept with an associated set of behaviors, (2) cognitive framing of hope as a means of student resilience, (3) COVID-19 as an antagonist which amplifies preexisting student concerns and issues, and (4) the social and physical environments serve as barriers and enablers to hope and well-being. Hope was perceived as a positive mental trait, external events and the environment were reported to impact hope, and those who were generally more hopeful adjusted better mentally when unexpected circumstances arose. CONCLUSIONS: Findings shed light on the interconnectedness and complex nature of hope, its sources, and enablers. Novel findings include the ways in which hope was affected during the COVID-19 pandemic. Recommendations for individual- and community-based interventions include targeting enablers to hopefulness by promoting social support systems, offering virtual extracurricular activities, and delivering alternative approaches to teaching and learning. SAGE Publications 2023-07-23 /pmc/articles/PMC10366665/ /pubmed/37497535 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/20503121231185014 Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
spellingShingle Original Research Article
Keshoofy, Aria
Lisnyj, Konrad
Pearl, David L
Thaivalappil, Abhinand
Papadopoulos, Andrew
A qualitative study of university students’ perspectives of hope during the COVID-19 pandemic
title A qualitative study of university students’ perspectives of hope during the COVID-19 pandemic
title_full A qualitative study of university students’ perspectives of hope during the COVID-19 pandemic
title_fullStr A qualitative study of university students’ perspectives of hope during the COVID-19 pandemic
title_full_unstemmed A qualitative study of university students’ perspectives of hope during the COVID-19 pandemic
title_short A qualitative study of university students’ perspectives of hope during the COVID-19 pandemic
title_sort qualitative study of university students’ perspectives of hope during the covid-19 pandemic
topic Original Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10366665/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37497535
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/20503121231185014
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