From fearful to hopeful: A thematic content analysis of COVID-19 survivors’ YouTube videos

Abstract

COVID-19 survivors experienced a spectrum of emotions as a result of surviving the said disease. Employing thematic content analysis, the researchers characterized the various emotional manifestations among recovered COVID-19 patients, which are crucial indicators of their mental well-being postinfection. From March 2020 to June 2021, data was collated from 31 Filipino COVID-19 Survivors’ YouTube videos. 51.61% of the videos were posted in 2020 and 48.39% were posted in 2021 where 70.97% of the survivors were female while 29.03% were male. 579 primary codes emerged and were narrowed down into sixteen themes where Hope (18.83%) arose as the most predominant emotion followed by Gratitude (14.68%), Joy and Relief (14.16%), Faith (11.57%), Plight Response (10.88%), Sadness (10.88%), Fear (6.39%), and nine others (12.61%).

Acknowledgments

We would like to dedicate this paper to our friend and co-author Chastine Chloie G. Gantuangco who battled cancer and is no longer with us. You inspired us to finish this paper and we could not have done it without you.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that there are no competing interests to report.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.