Resilience among older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic: A photovoice study.

Older adults faced significant challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic but also demonstrated great resilience. Investigating these strengths may enhance and inform strategies to mitigate the impacts of the pandemic. To gain insight into the resilience processes of older adults during the first year of the pandemic, we conducted a photovoice study with 26 older adults (aged over 60) in the province of Quebec, Canada. Participants met online weekly for three weeks in small groups to discuss their photographs and share their resilience strategies. The thematic analysis revealed three interrelated themes. First, participants distanced themselves from the pandemic by engaging in activities that took their focus away from COVID-19 and that afforded much-needed respite. Second, participants regained their bearings by reorganizing their schedules and establishing new routines that bolstered occupation rather than rumination. Third, participants used the pandemic to self-reflect and revise their priorities, leveraging the pandemic as an opportunity for growth. Together, these themes demonstrate the strengths, coping strategies and resilience of older adults and contrast the stereotypes of older adults as vulnerable and resourceless. These findings have the potential to inform the implementation of strength-based health promotion initiatives to mitigate the harms of the pandemic.

Resilience among older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic: A photovoice study

Older adults faced significant challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic but also demonstrated great resilience. Investigating these strengths may enhance and inform strategies to mitigate the impacts of the pandemic. To gain insight into the resilience processes of older adults during the first year of the pandemic, we conducted a photovoice study with 26 older adults (aged over 60) in the province of Quebec, Canada. Participants met online weekly for three weeks in small groups to discuss their photographs and share their resilience strategies. The thematic analysis revealed three interrelated themes. First, participants distanced themselves from the pandemic by engaging in activities that took their focus away from COVID-19 and that afforded much-needed respite. Second, participants regained their bearings by reorganizing their schedules and establishing new routines that bolstered occupation rather than rumination. Third, participants used the pandemic to self-reflect and revise their priorities, leveraging the pandemic as an opportunity for growth. Together, these themes demonstrate the strengths, coping strategies and resilience of older adults and contrast the stereotypes of older adults as vulnerable and resourceless. These findings have the potential to inform the implementation of strength-based health promotion initiatives to mitigate the harms of the pandemic.

Virtual Photovoice With Older Adults: Methodological Reflections during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Photovoice is a participatory action research method in which participants take and narrate photographs to share their experiences and perspectives. This method is gaining in popularity among health researchers. Few studies, however, have described virtual photovoice data collection despite the growing interest among qualitative health researchers for online data collection. As such, the aim of this article is to discuss the implementation of a virtual photovoice study and presents some of the challenges of this design and potential solutions. The study examined issues of social isolation and mental health among older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Canadian province of Québec. Twenty-six older adults took photographs depicting their experience of the pandemic that were then shared in virtual discussion groups. In this article, we discuss three key challenges arising from our study and how we navigated them. First, we offer insights into managing some of the technical difficulties related to using online meeting technologies. Second, we describe the adjustments we made during our study to foster and maintain positive group dynamics. Third, we share our insights into the process of building and maintaining trust between both researchers and participants, and amongst participants. Through a discussion of these challenges, we offer suggestions to guide the work of health promotion researchers wishing to conduct virtual photovoice studies, including with older adults.