A CONSTRUCTIVE UNDERSTANDING OF MENTAL HEALTH FACILITATORS AND BARRIERS THROUGH ONLINE PHOTOVOICE (OPV) DURING COVID-19

Abstract

We (1) used Online Photovoice (OPV) to examine mental health facilitator and concerns for counseling students during Covid-19, (2) advocated to support wellbeing and address mental health issues; (3) investigated the students’ attribution of facilitators and barriers to different systems; and, (4) tested the use of already adapted Turkish version of OPV. We used OPV in Turkish to understand the students’ lived experiences and Online Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (OIPA) for analyzing the students’ reponses. We had 98 (63 female and 35 male) students’ responses for the final analyses. We found 17 main facilitator (e.g., support of family and friends and socialization with them, 32%, n = 31; spending time in/with nature, 31%, n = 30; benefitting from books, 18%, n = 18) and 14 barrier main themes (restriction of freedom, 29%, n = 28; psychosocial and spiritual issues, 20%, n = 20; and not being able to physically come together with others, 19%, n = 19). We discussed our results and provided functional and meaningful implications in research, education, mental health, and advocacy areas.