Public perceptions and experiences of social distancing and social isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic: a UK-based focus group study
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Abstract
This study explored UK public perceptions and experiences of social distancing and social isolation related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Design
This qualitative study comprised five focus groups, carried out online during the early stages of the UK’s stay at home order (‘lockdown’), and analysed using a thematic approach.
Setting
Focus groups took place via online videoconferencing.
Participants
Participants (n=27) were all UK residents aged 18 years and older, representing a range of gender, ethnic, age and occupational backgrounds.
Results
Qualitative analysis revealed four main themes: (1) loss—participants’ loss of (in-person) social interaction, loss of income and loss of structure and routine led to psychological and emotional ‘losses’ such as loss of motivation, loss of meaning and loss of self-worth; (2) criticisms of government communication—participants reported a lack of trust in government and a lack of clarity in the guidelines around social distancing and isolation; (3) adherence—participants reported high self-adherence to social distancing guidelines but reported seeing or hearing of non-adherence in others; (4) uncertainty around social reintegration and the future—some participants felt they would have lingering concerns over social contact while others were eager to return to high levels of social activity.
Most participants, and particularly those in low-paid or precarious employment, reported feeling that the social distancing and isolation associated with COVID-19 policy has had negative impacts on their mental health and well-being during the early stages of the UK’s ‘lockdown’.
Conclusions
A rapid response is necessary in terms of public health programming to mitigate the mental health impacts of COVID-19 social distancing and isolation. Social distancing and isolation ‘exit strategies’ must account for the fact that, although some individuals will voluntarily or habitually continue to socially distance, others will seek high levels of social engagement as soon as possible.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2020.04.10.20061267: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
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:Limitations: One limitation of this study is that it is not possible to rule out that the high degree of adherence and social conscience that participants expressed was not at least partly affected by social desirability bias, …
SciScore for 10.1101/2020.04.10.20061267: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
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:Limitations: One limitation of this study is that it is not possible to rule out that the high degree of adherence and social conscience that participants expressed was not at least partly affected by social desirability bias, which can often be encountered in focus group studies.[19] However, conducting focus groups online has been found to reduce social desirability bias (although it is worth noting that this is more so where asynchronous or text-only communication is used, and not video-conferencing as in our study).[12,20] Another limitation of this study is that it did not recruit participants who are deemed at particularly high risk from COVID-19-related complications, for example, individuals aged 70 and over and those living with certain chronic health conditions.[21] Because these individuals are likely to have been significantly affected by social distancing and isolation policy (being required to self-isolate for 12 weeks), their views will be important. It is also worth noting that our recruitment material did encourage those at high risk to apply, though we received no applications from those over-70. This may be partly due to the fact that those over-70 are a hard-to-reach group online, because they are significantly less likely to use social media or be heavy internet users,[22] which, due to the lack of online social support and interaction, might mean they are at particularly high risk of some of the negative social and psychological impacts discussed in this...
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.
- Thank you for including a protocol registration statement.
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