2.1. Study design

The online survey, based on the review of literature regarding the impact of UGS on mental wellbeing, was developed to be anonymously responded online using Google Forms from May 13, 2020, to June 26, 2020. This was 2 months after the initial date in which the Spanish government stated a decree declaring the country under “state of alarm”, to manage the new health crisis situation. An original Spanish version was formulated, later translated to English to include non-Spanish speakers, to understand how frequently people used UGS, in which way and who they shared the interaction of UGS with, which sensation UGS provided and how important were UGS personally. At the beginning of the survey, the confidentiality of the research was guaranteed. The anonymous responses to the online survey were used as main database.

The survey consisted of 40 questions in 4 different parts: the first section had a series of questions regarding the individual's profile and the second section included the description of their current residence and living space typology. The third section studied the participants use and appreciation of UGS prior to lockdown, aiming to understand and gather information about the respondents nearest green spaces (1 km and 3 km).

Lastly a fourth section concerning the isolation due to COVID-19 in Phase Zero of the State of Alarm, which included questions as: which UGS were closed in their neighborhood, whether it was a good idea to keep UGS open, and their new relationship with UGS: how frequently, in which way and who they shared the interaction of UGS with. It comprised as well the sensation their confinement space gave them, who they shared their space with and whether they were vulnerable to the virus, if they were working or studying, what they missed the most of their prior lifestyle, and the importance they gave UGS during quarantine. It ended with the stress conditions they suffered prior to and during the confinement. There was also an option to provide additional comments at the end of the survey.

According Sierra’s recommendations, it was ensured that all questions about an aspect or dimension were included together in the questionnaire, keeping a temporal, logical and psychological order (Bravo and Restituto, 1998).

Questions summarized in Table 1 were mostly closed-formed and multiple-choice type and some items were based on validated stress scales (Molina, 2005). There were some open questions that included the participant’s opinion but these were not considered for this analysis. For the precise questions used in this study, see Appendix.

Questionnaire structure.

Participants were inquired about the appreciation of their own mental health. Self-assessment of mental health tends to be more related to stressful life events (van den Berg et al., 2010), therefore, it was important to carry on with the survey when people were going through this crisis and not after having endured it, because they responded to what they felt at that moment (Lehberger et al., 2021; Poortinga et al., 2021), and not so much to a memory of what they may have felt at the time.

The participant’s sample included anyone over the age of 18 with internet access. It was decided that children and teenagers would need a different kind of approach, and since there were no possibilities of going out of for a door-to-door survey, the formulation was unavoidably on-line. The distribution of the questionnaire was performed mainly through social networks (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram) and communication channels (WhatsApp, e-mail and links) using a snowball approach.