EVALUATING A GRASSROOTS INITIATIVE IN A GLOBAL DISASTER: MENTAL HEALTH TIPS CIRCULATED DURING THE EARLY STAGES OF THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC

Abstract

In March 2020, the United Kingdom was placed under its first national coronavirus lockdown. This significantly reduced people’s access to factors associated with good mental health, such as work and physical activity. This work describes the process of evaluating one psychologist’s response to the early stages of lockdown - the development and circulation of daily mental health tips. These used Jahoda’s latent deprivation (1982) theory to promote psychological wellbeing amongst recipients. Collective traumatic events such as the coronavirus pandemic require timely and evidence-based responses, and research suggests that offering psychological intervention at the wrong time can be harmful (Roseet al., 2003). The community initiative described in the present work was therefore evaluated in terms of its reach and utility. This was achieved through an online questionnaire (n = 14), and additional information from people in regular receipt of the mental health tips (n = 6). The unique backdrop of the early stages of the global pandemic resulted in considerable challenges to evaluating this initiative, especially with regards to some of the design decisions taken. These challenges are reflected on here, resulting in recommendations for researchers who may wish to conduct similar projects in the future.