Exploring the social and emotional representations used by students from the University of the Basque Country to face the first outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic

• Published in: Health education research Vol. 36; no. 2; pp. 159 - 169
• Main Authors: Idoiaga Mondragon, Nahia, Berasategi Sancho, Naiara, Eiguren Munitis, Amaia, Dosil Santamaria, Maria
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Oxford University Press 12-04-2021
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Communicable Disease Control; COVID-19 - psychology; Emotions; Female; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Original; Pandemics; Spain - epidemiology; Students; Young Adult; Spain
• ISSN: 1465-3648; 0268-1153; 1465-3648
• DOI: 10.1093/her/cyab006

In 2020, COVID-19, a new emerging infectious disease (EID), was spread throughout the world, including Europe. Spain, in particular, witnessed a significant outbreak of the pandemic. In consequence, all classes were cancelled and the Government declared a state of emergency, ordering the lockdown of the entire population from March to May. The aim of this research is to explore the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on the representations of young university students from the University of the Basque Country and their emotional response when the crisis started. A free-association exercise was completed by 503 students from the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) (Northern Spain). To analyze the content, the Reinert method was used with the Iramuteq software for lexical analysis. The results showed that students placed COVID-19 at a distance from the self, pointing out issues related to social response and disinformation, while showing concerns for self-related issues that are linked to negative emotions, academic consequences, and potentially close victims. The students' concerns were categorized at four main levels: the communicative-informative level, health-emotional level, community-social level, and academic level. All of this has created overwhelming feelings of nervousness, along with anger and emotional fatigue. These results indicate the necessity for universities to work from a holistic standpoint, not only in terms of responding to academic needs but also from psychological, communicative, social, health, and well-being perspectives.