Resilience of Hong Kong people in the COVID-19 pandemic: lessons learned from a survey at the peak of the pandemic in Spring 2020

ABSTRACT

At the beginning of the pandemic, the world has likened COVID-19 to SARS which devastated Hong Kong in 2003. Based on the results of a survey conducted between March and April 2020 with 761 Hong Kong adult residents, we summarised three lessons on the coping of Hong Kong people: (i) Establish adequate personal vigilance, (ii) Brace for a mental health crisis and (iii) Find strengths in social and community support. Social workers’ roles in health education, identifying service gaps, resource mapping and orchestrating community actions are vital for empowering flexible and adaptive community responses.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• Hong Kong
• mental health
• community
• health beliefs

Disclosure statement

All authors declare no conflict of interests.

Data availability statement

The dataset is available upon request to the authors after the completion of the longitudinal data collection.

Notes

1. Monthly household income was recoded as HKD <10,000 = 1; 10,000–19,999 = 2; 20,000–29,999 = 3; 30,000–39,999 = 4; 40,000–49,999 = 5; 50,000–59,999 = 6; 60,000–69,999 = 7; 70,000–79,999 = 8; 80,000–89,999 = 9; 90,000–99,999 = 10; 100,000 or above = 11. HKD 10,000 = USD 1,290.

Additional information

Funding

The study was funded by the Innovative Research Grant awarded to the second author.

Notes on contributors

Bobo H. P. Lau

Bobo H. P. Lau is an assistant professor in the Department of Counselling and Psychology, Hong Kong Shue Yan University. As an early career researcher trained in health psychology, gerontology and holistic interventions, she researches on issues related to psychological adjustments in chronic illnesses (including cancers, infertility), longevity and elderly caregiving, as well as community mental health.

Cecilia L. W. Chan

Cecilia L. W. Chan Chair of Health and Social Work in Department of Social Work and Social Administration, University of Hong Kong, edited and authored over 30 books and over 300 articles and book chapters in health and mental health in social work, eastern integrative empowerment intervention and outcome research, health, mental health and integrative social work. As an international leader in the field, she advocated for a strength-oriented empowerment approach in working with traumatised individuals such as cancer patients, women of divorce, persons in end-of-life or bereavement. She adopted vigorous bio-psycho-social outcome indicators in her randomised trials on measuring the impacts of her innovative Integrative Body-Mind-Spirit (IBMS) interventions on different populations and leads the first multi-disciplinary team using physiological impact (cortisol, telomerase) as outcome of psychosocial interventions in Hong Kong.

Siu-Man Ng

Siu-Man Ng With a dual professional background in mental health social work and Chinese medicine, Professor Ng, of the Department of Social Work and Social Administration, University of Hong Kong, researches on the interaction among mental health, mental disorders and culture. His current research areas include (i) operationalisation of the Chinese medicine stagnation syndrome as a psychological construct useful to all mental health practitioners; (ii) family expressed emotion of persons with schizophrenia and its impacts on the course of illness; (iii) critical re-examination of the conceptualisation of mindfulness; and (iv) workplace well-being: a paradigm shift of focus from stress and burnout to meaning and engagement.