COVID-19 Impact on Youth & Young Adults
Understanding the psychological and behavioural impact of COVID-19 global pandemic on the lives of a group of youth and young adults repatriated back to Sri Lanka from the UK due to COVID-19: a qualitative study
The United Kingdom (UK) is a popular destination among thousands of international students for higher education due to its highly prestigious, world-recognised universities and culturally diverse environment. According to the Higher Education Statistics Agency, over five million international students were pursuing their degree in the UK under Tier 4 and tier 5 visa categories in year 2018/2019. A majority of these students were from China, India, Thailand, Hong-Kong and Africa.
Once COVID-19 was recognized as a pandemic, many countries initiated lockdown and social distancing measures. People began working from home and home-schooling, while other major consequences such as Airport closures occurred due to the disease. The COVID-19 pandemic affected international students around the world, including the Sri Lankan students who are studying in the UK, as it resulted in disruption of their daily routines, sudden and abrupt changes to their academic activities, social lives and life styles.
Young adults are a high-risk category of individuals, as they are more likely to develop negative psychological and behavioural patterns due to outbreaks and self-isolation. This study opens an avenue to see how youth and young adults stranded overseas could be subject to different psychological and behavioural issues due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
It is conducted in the natural setting of the participants and involves first-hand experience research, where the researchers are also present in the setting, overtly observing the participants.
The participants are Sri Lankan students who have returned to their motherland from the UK due to the pandemic. Therefore, this contributes to the present research gap in the literature regarding the impact of COVID-19 on this age group.
The study aims to explore and understand the experience (including views, perceptions and attitudes) of youth and young adults repatriated back to Sri Lanka from the UK due to COVID-19, as well as observe and describe the psychological and behavioural impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the lives of this group.
This study has been submitted for approval by the Ethics Review Committee of the Faculty of Medicine and Allied Sciences, Rajarata University of Sri Lanka.
ERC Application Number: ERC/2020/38
We would like to invite you to take part in this project. Please take some time to read this information sheet. Ask us if you would like more information. You are free to decide whether or not to take part.
The COVID-19 Pandemic resulted in a sudden and abrupt change to our academic and daily lives due to the lockdown, university closure, social distancing and self-isolation procedures in the UK. Since then, most of us had to deal with many challenges till we were being able to move to Sri Lanka.
It is not clear how long the COVID-19 pandemic will continue to limit our academic activities and regular life styles. Clearly, there are challenges of continuing academic activities such as attending online virtual classes and completing assignments while being under quarantine with limited resources and distractions. However, despite the negativity, we may also experience some positive changes happening in our lives, like new friendships established while undergoing quarantine in Sri Lanka.
We thought it would be interesting to explore these and planned a research study among ourselves. This study aims to understand the impact of COVID-19 on our psychological status and behaviour while being under lockdown, self-isolation in the UK, repatriation and being quarantined here in Sri Lanka.
We are interested to hear from you, because you are an international student who had to repatriate to motherland from the UK, due to COVID-19 pandemic and also because, you are under quarantine procedures at the moment. Since the COVID-19 pandemic is still ongoing, this research paves the way to identify potential psychological and behavioural patterns of youth and young adults like us, that will arise because of the pandemic situations such as COVID-19.
- If you are interested to take part, you will be asked to complete an online survey via WhatsApp or email.
- We will also invite you for two short interviews (via WhatsApp or face-to-face), to share your views with us, during the quarantine period and also after going home.
- Your participation is voluntary and you are free to withdraw at any time, without giving any reason. We won’t feel bad about your decision at all.
- We are hoping to use our personal journals with notes on our objective observations from the Heathrow airport throughout the quarantine period as a data source for this study. However, if you do not consent for the study we will not use any journal information relating to you.
- By sharing our experience with each other, we can understand the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on our lives. It also will give us a chance to be aware of our own behaviour and psychological patterns during this entire process. Possible outcomes from this study will help to identify and address psychological and educational needs, challenges, coping strategies of youth and young adults like us and help the relevant authorities to develop guidelines to manage similar situations in the future and increase resilience.
- This study has been approved by the Ethics Review Committee of Rajarata University of Sri Lanka (No: ERC/2020/XX).
- There are no significant risks associated with participation. You may feel disturbed to recall some hardships during the interviews. However, we are there to support you if you feel any distress or disappointment.
- However, if you feel that you are uncomfortable, distressed or intrusive when answering certain questions, you are always free to refrain from answering them.
- If you feel negative thoughts and disappointment after taking part in the study, you are more than welcome to speak to us or Professor Athula Sumathipala from IRD (www.ird.lk)
- All the information you give us will be kept confidential and only used for research purposes. Only the research team will have access to this information.
- We will anonymise all transcripts (both interviews and our journal entries) before commencing data analysis. You will not be identified in any reports/research papers. This means that we will not associate your name or any other information that might enable you being traced back. Data will be processed and handled in accordance with General Data Protection Regulations of the Institute for Research and Development in Health and Social care (IRD) -Sri Lanka.
If you like to participate in this study or have any questions that are not answered here or prefer to discuss the project in more detail, please contact;
Kalpani : +44 7504 669755
Navodya: +44 7341 227575
Madura : +44 7554 302282
Email: covid19.slcom@gmail.com