Public adherence to governmental recommendations regarding quarantine and testing for COVID-19 in two Norwegian cohorts

  1. Ellen Ø Carlsen
  2. Ida Henriette Caspersen
  3. Lill Trogstad
  4. Håkon K Gjessing
  5. Per Magnus

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Abstract

Background

Combatting the COVID-19 pandemic relies at present on non-pharmacological interventions. Governments are using various approaches from general advice to full lockdown. There is a need to describe and understand adherence to public health actions.

Methods

Participants from two ongoing cohorts, the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study (MoBa) and The Norwegian Influenza Pregnancy Cohort (NorFlu), answered questionnaires every 14 days since March 2020. From the summer of 2020, testing for presence of SARS-CoV-2 became easily available. Recommendations were that respiratory symptoms should lead to testing, and that confirmed or suspected COVID-19 should be followed by quarantine. We estimated the adherence to these guidelines in responses from cohort participants in the period August to October 2020.

Results

Less than 40% of men who were ill and less than 45% of women who were ill, tested themselves for SARS-CoV-2 during the same 14-day periods. Among subjects tested for COVID-19, about 53% of men and 59% of women reported quarantine. For subjects with a confirmed or suspected COVID-19 diagnosis, the proportions quarantined were 65% for men and 72% for women.

Conclusions

Public adherence to governmental recommendations regarding testing and quarantine were lower than expected in a country with high trust in government. This leaves considerable room for improvement in adherence, possibly reducing the need for more restrictive interventions.

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    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.12.18.20248405: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIRB: The current study was based on The Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study (MoBa)2 and The Norwegian Influenza Pregnancy Cohort (NorFlu),3 approved by The Regional Committees for Medical and Health Research Ethics, South East Norway C (no. 127708 for MoBa) and South East Norway B (no. 18403 for NorFlu).
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variableDuring the swine flu pandemic (A H1N1(pdm09)) in 2009/2010, pregnant women were invited to participate in NorFlu which was established to examine associations between influenza and influenza vaccinations during pregnancy and a series of outcomes.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    All analyses were performed in Stata, (Statacorp, College Station, TX) version 16.0.
    Statacorp
    suggested: None

    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: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    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.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.12.18.20248405v1 on medRxiv