Psychological impact of mandatory COVID-19 quarantine on small business owners and self-employed in China

A massive home-quarantine took place in China due to the novel coronavirus in the end of 2019. The purpose of the present study was to explore the potential mental health impact of this forced quarantine and widespread shutdown among small business owners and the self-employed. A semi-structured interview was employed among 14 participants from three different cities in China. Grounded Theory was employed to analyze the data using Nvivo11 plus. Based on a qualitative analysis, 9 categories of responses emerged to describe the experience and actions of participants towards the quarantine: enjoyment of life, emotional disturbance, hope, comparisons to others, social support, patriotism, making changes, and obedience. Further analysis suggested that the mental state of participants was either positive or negative depending on enjoyment of life, loss, emotional disturbance, and hope, and that these were impacted by intervening conditions (national measures, social support, patriotism), personal strategies (exercising, studying, comparisons to others), and personal consequences (making change, obedience). Rather than observing a linear pattern of negative outcomes, mental state was found to be variable in that positive outcomes were experienced earlier in the quarantine (making connections with family), negative states were encountered midway through the quarantine (fear of financial loss, anxiety), and more positive mental states (hope) emerged towards the end of the quarantine depending on intervening conditions, personal strategies, and consequences. It can be concluded that the nature of the impact of mandatory quarantine in China among small business owners and the self-employed is complex and depends on a variety of personal and situational factors.