Table 1 Topic guides for focus group discussions held by Southampton, Edinburgh and UCL teams

1. How are you spending your time?

- What has changed for you in the last week/2 or 3 weeks?

- How have your eating habits changed?

- How are you keeping active?

- How have your feelings changed over the lockdown?

1. What is going on for you right now and how are you spending your time?

2. What has changed for you in the last few weeks or so?

3. How has it affected your studies or work?

4. How do you think people in your age group are dealing with this situation?

5. How important is community for you and what are your main sorts of communities?

6. What feelings of responsibility do you have if any in your community?

7. What have you been told about the coronavirus pandemic and who has told you this? Where did you hear about it?

8. What do you think about what you’ve heard and what you are being told to do?

9. How important do you think it is to follow the advice?

10. Which bit of advice do you find most difficult to do and why?

11. Which bits of advice do you find easiest to do and why?

12. What do you think we could do to help young people to stay safe and follow government advice?

13. What would the messages from the government have to contain to make young people follow the guidance?

14. Where should these messages be placed?

15. What could young people do that would help and how do we involve young people in keeping other young people safe?

1. Introduction to project and general discussion of their experiences of lockdown period

- What is going on for you right now? How are you spending your time? What has changed for you in the last week/2 or 3 weeks? How are you coping? How have your feelings changed over the lockdown?

-What are you doing to manage your time? What new things have you tried?

2. Focus on young people’s perceptions of policy responses and positive coping strategies

- How are you coping? How are you keeping active?

- How do you think the government’s approach to lockdown impacted people? What do you think about the current messaging from the government and what you are being told to do? What would the messages from the government have to contain to make young people follow the guidance? Where should these messages be placed?

- What could young people do that would help? How do we involve young people in helping their communities?

3. Development of bespoke programming messaging for young people from racialised groups to promote positive health behaviours and peer support during this global health crisis

- Was the lockdown well explained or justified by the government’s public health approach? Do you think that young people have received adequate or relevant information to justify the lockdown?

- Do you know of any support resources that were available to young people during the lockdown? If so, what did you think of them? What would strong support services for young people look like? What support should be available to people as lockdown is eased?

- What do you think of the current messaging for COVID-19? Is the messaging relevant? What is the messaging missing? What does the message include that has been useful or informative? What else would you want from the messaging & why?

- Where do you think most people get their COVID-19 messaging or information from? Where do you get your COVID-19 messaging or information from?

- What would an ideal public health message look like for young people like you?

2. What are you doing to manage your time?

- What new things have you tried?

3. What do you think about the current messaging from the government and what you are being told to do?

- What would the messages from the government have to contain to make young people follow the guidance?

- Where should these messages be placed?

4. What could young people do that would help?

- How do we involve young people in helping their communities?