Positive outcomes associated with the COVID‐19 pandemic in Australia

  1. Samuel Cornell
  2. Brooke Nickel
  3. Erin Cvejic
  4. Carissa Bonner
  5. Kirsten J. McCaffery
  6. Julie Ayre
  7. Tessa Copp
  8. Carys Batcup
  9. Jennifer Isautier
  10. Thomas Dakin
  11. Rachael Dodd

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Abstract

Issue addressed

To investigate whether Australians have experienced any positive effects during the COVID‐19 pandemic.

Methods

National online longitudinal survey. As part of a June 2020 survey, participants (n = 1370) were asked ‘In your life, have you experienced any positive effects from the COVID‐19 pandemic’ (yes/no) and also completed the World Health Organisation‐Five well‐being index. Differences were explored by demographic variables. Free‐text responses were thematically coded.

Results

Nine hundred sixty participants (70%) reported experiencing at least one positive effect during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Living with others ( P  = .045) and employment situation ( P  < .001) at baseline (April) were associated with experiencing positive effects. Individuals working for pay from home were more likely to experience positive effects compared to those who were not working for pay (aOR = 0.45, 95% CI: 0.32, 0.63, P  < .001) or who were working for pay outside the home (aOR = 0.40, 95% CI: 0.28, 0.58, P  < .001). 54.2% of participants reported a sufficient level of well‐being, 23.2% low well‐being and a further 22.6% very low well‐being. Of those experiencing positive effects, 945/960 (98%) provided an explanation. The three most common themes were ‘Family time’ (33%), ‘Work flexibility’ (29%) and ‘Calmer life’ (19%).

Conclusions

A large proportion of participants reported positive effects resulting from changes to daily life due to the COVID‐19 pandemic in Australia.

So what

The needs of people living alone, and of those having to work outside the home or who are unemployed, should be considered by health policymakers and employers in future pandemic preparedness efforts.

Article activity feed

  1. Version published to 10.1002/hpja.494
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.12.10.20247346: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIRB: Ethical Approval: This study was approved by The University of Sydney Human Research Ethics Committee (2020/212).
    Consent: All participants in the study provided informed consent before completing the online survey.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variableLogistic regression was applied to determine whether age (categorised into 10 year groups until 70+), gender (male, female, other/prefer not to say), highest level of educational attainment (high school or less, trade certificate, university education), household structure (live alone, or live with 1-2, 3-4, or 5 or more others) or employment situation in April (not working for pay, working for pay from home, working for pay outside the home, or other working for pay situation) were associated with self-reported positive experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Quantitative analysis: Quantitative data were analysed using Stata/IC v16.1 (StataCorp, College Station TX, USA).
    StataCorp
    suggested: (Stata, RRID:SCR_012763)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Strengths and limitations: This study is novel in its use of both qualitative and quantitative methods to determine if any positive outcomes are to be found in the experiences of a large sample of Australians during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study is limited by its sample which is not nationally representative nor culturally and linguistically diverse. Future research should aim to include a broader representation of experiences of the pandemic most notably those from diverse backgrounds and cultural groups.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.12.10.20247346v1 on medRxiv