Emotional Experiences of Vulnerable Groups During COVID-19

Abstract: Introduction: The study focuses on the prevalent emotions and specific experiences of three particularly vulnerable groups in the Bulgarian pandemic context. The target groups include working parents with small children (0–12 years), people who lost their jobs because of the COVID-19 crisis, and people with chronic diseases. Methods: To determine the experiences and sources of stress, we conducted semistructured in-depth calendar interviews ( N = 45) in late 2021. Narratives of representatives of the three groups generated authentic retrospective textual data, amounting to 221,883 words. To identify prevalent emotions in their speech, we did an automated qualitative data analysis of the three text corpuses and built a 10-category dictionary for basic emotions in accordance with Carroll Izard’s (1991) differential emotions theory, including synonyms, similar, and related words. Results: Content analysis showed that the most prominent emotion was fear, followed by interest, sadness and enjoyment. Lack of consistent and reliable information, the feeling of uncertainty, fear of the unknown and constant changes in the restrictive measures were significant sources of stress for all groups included in the study. At the same time, the three vulnerable groups differed both in the sources and in the content of the expressed fears. Discussion: Both practical and future research implications are discussed. Perhaps, these findings are valid for other types of crises and can serve as a central line for elaborating specific measures and crisis communication strategies targeting concrete vulnerable groups in society. Conclusion: Although the prevalent emotion in the narratives was fear, both the sources and the content of the fears were very different for the three groups. Findings suggest that specific measures and policies for the different vulnerable groups might be more effective in case of crisis.