Stress and Coping Strategies of Hong Kong University Students During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Qualitative Study

The COVID-19 pandemic had brought significant challenges to university students in China, including the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. To understand the stress and coping strategies of university students during the pandemic, we conducted focus group interviews with 56 Hong Kong university students from late December 2022 to mid-January 2023. Thematic analysis using a deductive data analytic approach based on the Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping was applied to form concepts on coping strategies. Findings revealed four major challenges faced by Hong Kong university students, which were the accumulation of negative emotions, health-related anxiety and constant change in pandemic-related policies, conflict with family members, and challenges in online learning, academic and career development. When coping these challenges, students applied: (1) seeking social support, emphasizing the positive and tension-reduction to manage their negative emotions; (2) problem-focused coping and emphasizing the positive to deal with health-related anxiety and stress arising from the constant change in pandemic-related policies; (3) seeking social support, tension-reduction, distancing/detachment and self-isolation/keep to self to handle conflict with family members; (4) seeking social support, problem-focused coping, emphasizing the positive and distancing/detachment to cope with challenges in online learning, and academic and career development. Besides, comparing students with different background, the findings showed that more students with a high level of self-perceived resilience employed emphasizing the positive as a coping strategy; while more students with financial difficulties applied tension-reduction coping strategies. The current study contributes to the stress and coping literature by illustrating Hong Kong young people’s stress and coping strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study also supports the Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping and extends the discussion to various coping theories.