Sensemaking processes during the first months of COVID-19 pandemic: Using diaries to deepen how Italian youths experienced lockdown measures

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about disruptive changes in individuals’ lives, breaking the established systems of meaning worldwide. Indeed, in the first months of the pandemic, with individuals being forced to stay at home for a prolonged time to contain the spread of the virus, the need to build new meanings to understand and face this crisis emerged. Building on this, the present study contributes to the understanding of how sensemaking processes were shaped in the face of COVID-19 collective trauma during the very first months of the pandemic. Hence, 36 Italian young adults aged between 21 and 25 submitted daily diary entries for two weeks (T1 was the third week of Italian National lockdown; T2 was the penultimate week before the ease of such stay-at-home orders), resulting in 504 texts. The stimulus was always “Could you describe your daily experience and feelings?”. The Grounded Theory was used. Thus, 15 categories emerged, grouped into three macro-categories. The core category was sensemaking as adaptation. Indeed, the sensemaking process seemed to be a strategy to adapt to the new circumstances related to the lockdown, facing the emotional, cognitive, and activation reactions such conditions by relying on coping strategies and the redefinition of primary as well as broader social relationships.