Concerns, quality of life, access to care and productivity of the general population during the first 8 weeks of the coronavirus lockdown in Belgium and the Netherlands

  1. Hanne van Ballegooijen
  2. Lucas Goossens
  3. Ralph H. Bruin
  4. Renée Michels
  5. Marieke Krol

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Abstract

Background

The COVID-19 pandemic has a disruptive impact on our society. We therefore conducted a population survey to describe: 1) stress, concerns and quality of life 2) access to healthcare and cancelled/delayed healthcare and 3) productivity during the first 8 weeks of the coronavirus lockdown in the general population.

Methods

An online cross-sectional survey was conducted in a representative sample after 8 weeks of the coronavirus lockdown in Belgium and the Netherlands. The survey included a series of three validated questionnaires about quality of life delayed/cancelled medical care and productivity loss using validated questionnaires.

Results

In total, 2099 Belgian and 2058 Dutch respondents completed the survey with a mean age of 46.4 and 42.0 years, respectively. Half of the respondents were female in both countries. A small proportion tested positive for COVID-19, 1.4% vs 4.7%, respectively. The majority of respondents with a medical condition was worried about their current health state due to the pandemic (53%) vs (63%), respectively. Respondents experienced postponed/cancelled care (26%) and were concerned about the availability of medication (32%) for both countries. Productivity losses due to the COVID-19 restrictions were calculated in absenteeism (36%) and presenteeism (30%) for Belgium, and (19%) and (35%) for the Netherlands. Most concerns and productivity losses were reported by respondents with children < 12 years, respondents aged 18–35 and respondents with an (expected) COVID-19 infection.

Conclusions

This study describes stress, quality of life, medical resource loss and productivity losses in Belgium and the Netherlands after 8 weeks of coronavirus lockdown. The results underline the burden on society.

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  1. Version published to 10.1186/s12913-021-06240-7
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.07.24.20161554: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementConsent: Respondents’ identity remained unknown to researchers and all respondents provided informed consent regarding their participation in the survey and for scientific publication.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Statistical analyses: The data were analyzed in IBM SPSS Statistics and summarized in proportions and means with 95% confidence intervals, and means with standard deviations when appropriate.
    SPSS
    suggested: (SPSS, RRID:SCR_002865)

    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: Our study has some strengths and limitations. Strengths were the large representative sample that could be reached in a relatively short period of time, which was vital since the COVID-19 situation develops rapidly. We used validated questionnaires that strengthen the standardized data collection. Our population yielded a utility value of 0.85 for the entire population of the Netherlands, which is close to the reference value for the general Dutch population 0.87 (11). This implies that our sample is comparable to a general population sample. A limitation of this study is that there was no ability to add detailed instructions to the questionnaire as only limited instructions could be provided at the beginning of the questionnaire. To obtain a broad view of society, the questionnaire was relatively long (mean duration 15 minutes) and the iPCQ and iMCQ can be considered quite complex. Some misunderstanding or mis categorization can therefore not be excluded. A second limitation is that the recall period in several sections of the questionnaire is relatively long (∼8 weeks). These responses maybe influenced by recall bias. The questions about the time before the lockdown relied on memory and were answered in a cross-sectional fashion. This might be influenced by external factors and might not represent normal life. Lastly, the sample was slightly underrepresented for the lowest educational class for Belgium.

    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 10.1101/2020.07.24.20161554v1 on medRxiv