Interviews about pandemics and protective measures: studying key informants’ representation to develop a web-application for fostering children and adolescents’ resilience

ABSTRACT

COVID-19 pandemic can be defined as a biological disaster whose impact is particularly evident for children and adolescents, vulnerable populations because of their level of cognitive and affective development. For this reason, it is of paramount relevance to develop actions focused on disaster-related prevention and preparedness, including psycho-education. In this study, we aimed at exploring key informants’ representation of the pandemic, also to identify the contents for the first two levels of a psycho-educational web-application for children and adolescents, i.e., PandHEMOT® (Pandemics – Helmet for EMOTions). We involved 25 experts with different professional roles through semi-structured interviews about a variety of aspects related to the pandemic. We coded each proposition according to four categories (i.e., Basic knowledge, Procedural knowledge, Safety behaviors, and Consequences). First, a generalized linear mixed model revealed that Safety behaviors was the most frequent category, followed by Consequences, and in turn by Procedural and Basic knowledge. Second, through a cluster analysis we identified three clusters corresponding to different response patterns and pandemic representations. Third, we conducted a thematic analysis to select the items to be inserted in the first and second level of PandHEMOT®, focused on the nature of pandemics and pandemic-related protective measures. Notwithstanding the limitations related to the small sample, this research permitted to explore the representation of different experts concerning the COVID-19 pandemic. Also, these findings enabled to identify the contents for the initial levels of a web-application designed for increasing children and adolescents’ knowledge on pandemics, emotions, and coping strategies. This initiative can be an example of a psycho-educational tool to enhance young people’s disaster-related resilience.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19 pandemic
• interviews
• key informants
• representation
• protective measures
• children
• adolescents
• web-application

Acknowledgments

The authors thanks all the participants.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, DR, upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Italian Ministry of University and Research, Bando FISR 2020 COVID.