Coping Among Canadian Youth Living With Anxiety: A Phenomenological Photovoice Study

Abstract

The purpose of this phenomenological photovoice study was to explore the lived experience of coping among 58 Canadian youth diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. A youth advisory committee was actively engaged throughout the project. Two phases of interviews were conducted more than a period of 4 years (2012–2016), supplemented by photovoice in the second interview. Data analysis was informed by van Manen’s hermeneutic phenomenology approach and his “Lifeworld Existentials” of embodiment, spatiality, relationality, and temporality served as a framework for organizing the data. Coping with anxiety was experienced as difficult: Anxiety was challenging to control and youth reported looking for something they could do to give them a break from their anxious thoughts and feelings. Youth reluctantly accepted their condition, and some adopted a new perspective of their experience. Coping strategies reported by youth fall along the lived experience domains of embodiment (body), spatiality (space), relationality (relations), temporality (time) and include expressing feelings and emotions, naming anxiety, bringing their attention to the present moment, distraction, going to a familiar space to calm down, going outdoors, reaching out to someone who could “be there” for them, and being with a pet. This study contributes to the emerging lived experience research in anxiety.