Resilience and adaptation in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic: Complex mixed methods research of adults in Minnesota and Hong Kong

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to escalating family conflicts while limiting resources previously available to cope with stress. The mechanisms underlying resilience in the pandemic largely remain a black box. This dissertation aims to generate a holistic understanding of the trajectories of resilience capacity in response to complex acute-onset and chronic stress associated with the pandemic. My proposed Multisystemic Resilience Framework, a conceptual framework, illuminates resilience as a developing capacity changing over time. Informed by and empirically examining the framework, this dissertation employed complex mixed methods design targeting adults living with family members in Western cultures (i.e., Minnesota) and Eastern cultures (i.e., Hong Kong) over the first two years of the pandemic. Study 1 used a sequential, explanatory mixed-methods design to generate a fuller understanding of resilience capacity as manifested by individual and family resources, cumulative pandemic-related stressors, and mental health of adults. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the moderating roles of coping resources in each region, while qualitative content analysis elucidated the quantitative findings. Coping resources predicted around one-third of the variance in perceive resilience capacity during the early outbreak of pandemic in each region. Different individual and family coping resources were protective of adult mental health when facing high levels of pandemic-related stressors. The qualitative findings illuminated the situation-specific and culture-specific coping strategies utilized by participants. Study 2 used a critical realism paradigm to deepen the understanding of resilience mechanisms under specific contextual conditions throughout the pandemic. These resilience mechanisms, involving family hardiness, distress tolerance, and cognitive flexibility, offered insights into ways that individuals and families cope with complex stressors involving competing priorities. The study elucidated ways that individuals balanced family togetherness, family roles and responsibilities with their personal sense of safety from the infectious nature of COVID-19. Overall, this complex mixed methods research provides significant theoretical, methodological, and empirical contributions to our current understanding of resilience mechanisms within sociocultural contexts. While these empirical findings align with existing psychological treatments, the findings are suggestive of the need for culturally-tailored interventions to effectively ameliorate the negative impacts of a global pandemic and future related crises.