Browsing by Author "Kachulak, Tyler"

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    COVID-19 and mental health: framing emotional concerns
    (2021) Kachulak, Tyler; Symbaluk, Diane
    This content analysis examined 196 Twitter tweets to identify contexts in which emotional concerns were raised on social media during the pandemic. A purposive sampling procedure was employed to collect all tweets explicitly or implicitly expressing a contextualized emotional concern towards COVID-19. An open-coding procedure was utilized to examine the contexts in which emotional concerns were framed, and the frequency of occurrence of any contextualized emotional concern was recorded. Results revealed 7 main ways within which emotional concerns were framed, including: COVID-19 Virus, School-Related, Groups/Individuals, Social Institutions, Financial/Work-Related, Mass Media, and Other. Emotional concerns were most often tied to aspects of the virus itself such as fear of contracting the disease, linked to other issues involving schooling, or were raised in relation to the mental health of groups and/or individuals. Although previous literature has demonstrated that people exhibit psychological distress during a global health crisis, this study adds to the growing body of literature on COVID-19 and outlines the contexts in which emotional concern arise during a pandemic. These findings provide insight into how individuals are sharing concerns about their mental health with others via Twitter, and points to the need for psychological interventions specifically tailored to global health crises.
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    COVID-19 and mental health: framing emotional concerns and identifying coping mechanisms
    (2021) Kachulak, Tyler
    This content analysis examined 653 Twitter tweets from two threads in order to explore the ways in which emotional concerns are contextualized during the COVID-19 pandemic and sought to identify coping mechanisms mentioned in tweets following government-legislated lockdowns and social isolation measures. A purposive sampling method was employed to collect tweets possessing characteristics of interest to the present study. An open-coding procedure was utilized to examine any salient meanings or keywords, and the frequency of occurrence of contextualized emotional concerns and identified coping mechanisms was recorded. Results revealed 7 main ways within which emotional concerns were framed, including: COVID-19 Virus, School-Related, Groups/Individuals, Social Institutions, Financial/Work-Related, Mass Media, and Other. Results also revealed 10 themes in which coping mechanisms were identified: Hobbies/Interests, Social Media, Offering Resources, Substance Use, Connecting with Others, Eating, Raising Awareness/Promoting Compliance, Religion/Optimism, Humor/Sarcasm, and Other. Although previous literature has demonstrated that people exhibit psychological distress during a global health crisis, this study adds to the growing body of literature on COVID-19 and outlines the contexts in which emotional concerns arise during a pandemic and how people are coping through these unprecedented times. These findings provide insight into how individuals are sharing concerns about their mental health with others via Twitter during the COVID-19 pandemic, and points to the need for psychological interventions specifically oriented towards global health crises in the midst of government mandated lockdown measures.
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    Reactions to the coronavirus: a content analysis examining the extent to which media shapes public reactions in response to COVID-19
    (2020) Kachulak, Tyler
    This qualitative study explored the extent to which mass media exposure shapes public reactions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. A purposive sampling procedure was used to employ a content analysis on a sample of 100 of the most recent comments that included reactions towards COVID-19 from a CBC news article. An open-coding procedure was utilized to examine any themes or categories present in the comments, and the frequency of occurrence of any themes or categories were recorded. Results showed that eight categories of reactions were present: Fear, Warnings, Frivolous, Anger, Hope, Inevitable, Science, and Environment. Further sub-categories were identified within the overarching themes of fear, warnings, frivolous, and anger. This study demonstrated that fear is the most prevalent reaction towards COVID-19, keeping in line with existing research that media exposure and its use of fear-mongering tactics play a central role in shaping public reactions in response to pandemics.