“Voice to the youth”: An interpretative phenomenological analysis of pandemic experience in Italian young adults

The present study aims to explore how the Covid-19 pandemic was experienced by young adults, a demographic that has often been defined at high psychopathological risk. In the context of an action research, the study set out to provide the participants with a protected space in which they could be heard, and potentially re-process their experience through the construction of their testimonial narration. A semi-structured interview was developed to retrace the phases of the pandemic, i.e., March 2020 (lockdown), summer 2020, fall/winter 2020 (pandemic wave II), and the beginning of 2021 (vaccine plan), as they were experienced by 23 participants (18-30 years old). The interviews were transcribed and analyzed according to the structural principles of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Four superordinate themes emerged: “The impossible in a very short time”, “Things were better when times were harder”, “I control... therefore I am and will be” and “Ambivalence”. The traumatic impact of the pandemic was perceived in all the phases explored, especially during the second wave. The analysis of the testimonial narrations highlighted the main difficulties encountered during that time, the resources used to deal with them, a symmetrization of the respondents’ relationship with their parents, their relationship with the Covid-19 infodemic, and a progressive decrease in institutional trust. While the size of the sample is consistent with the methodology used, it constitutes the main limitation of the project. This research should be seen as the initial phase of a larger study, which aims to investigate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on young adults using quantitative methods.