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      Additional burdens of family caregivers during the COVID‐19 pandemic: A qualitative analysis of social media in Germany

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          Abstract

          Caregiving is associated with various burdens for family caregivers. The COVID‐19 pandemic and the protective measures implemented to restrict public life, such as social distancing and the closure of services and educational institutions, add further challenges. Little is known about how they are perceived by family caregivers. Based on an analysis of German social media posts, the aim of this study was to explore the additional strains family caregivers experience during the pandemic. The websites of three social media services were searched using the respective search engines provided by the websites. Data from a 10‐month period (March to December 2020) were identified and examined. A total of 237 publicly available posts were included in the analysis. Seven main categories were identified using a thematic approach: care and support, deterioration of the condition of the person being cared for, psychological challenges, financial challenges, infection control, access to protective equipment, and acknowledgement of family caregivers. Family caregivers are affected by additional burdens during the pandemic, which makes the development of support and relief services tailored to this population group necessary.

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          Most cited references38

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          Three approaches to qualitative content analysis.

          Content analysis is a widely used qualitative research technique. Rather than being a single method, current applications of content analysis show three distinct approaches: conventional, directed, or summative. All three approaches are used to interpret meaning from the content of text data and, hence, adhere to the naturalistic paradigm. The major differences among the approaches are coding schemes, origins of codes, and threats to trustworthiness. In conventional content analysis, coding categories are derived directly from the text data. With a directed approach, analysis starts with a theory or relevant research findings as guidance for initial codes. A summative content analysis involves counting and comparisons, usually of keywords or content, followed by the interpretation of the underlying context. The authors delineate analytic procedures specific to each approach and techniques addressing trustworthiness with hypothetical examples drawn from the area of end-of-life care.
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            Initial Challenges of Caregiving During COVID-19: Caregiver Burden, Mental Health, and the Parent–Child Relationship

            Research confirms that the mental health burdens following community-wide disasters are extensive, with pervasive impacts noted in individuals and families. It is clear that child disaster outcomes are worst among children of highly distressed caregivers, or those caregivers who experience their own negative mental health outcomes from the disaster. The current study used path analysis to examine concurrent patterns of parents’ (n = 420) experience from a national sample during the early months of the U.S. COVID-19 pandemic. The results of a multi-group path analysis, organized by parent gender, indicate good fit to the data [X2(10) = 159.04, p < .01]. Results indicate significant linkages between parents’ caregiver burden, mental health, and perceptions of children’s stress; these in turn are significantly linked to child-parent closeness and conflict, indicating possible spillover effects for depressed parents and compensatory effects for anxious parents. The impact of millions of families sheltering in place during the COVID-19 pandemic for an undefined period of time may lead to unprecedented impacts on individuals’ mental health with unknown impacts on child-parent relationships. These impacts may be heightened for families whose caregivers experience increased mental health symptoms, as was the case for fathers in the current sample.
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              Investigation of a COVID-19 outbreak in Germany resulting from a single travel-associated primary case: a case series

              Summary Background In December, 2019, the newly identified severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) emerged in Wuhan, China, causing COVID-19, a respiratory disease presenting with fever, cough, and often pneumonia. WHO has set the strategic objective to interrupt spread of SARS-CoV-2 worldwide. An outbreak in Bavaria, Germany, starting at the end of January, 2020, provided the opportunity to study transmission events, incubation period, and secondary attack rates. Methods A case was defined as a person with SARS-CoV-2 infection confirmed by RT-PCR. Case interviews were done to describe timing of onset and nature of symptoms and to identify and classify contacts as high risk (had cumulative face-to-face contact with a confirmed case for ≥15 min, direct contact with secretions or body fluids of a patient with confirmed COVID-19, or, in the case of health-care workers, had worked within 2 m of a patient with confirmed COVID-19 without personal protective equipment) or low risk (all other contacts). High-risk contacts were ordered to stay at home in quarantine for 14 days and were actively followed up and monitored for symptoms, and low-risk contacts were tested upon self-reporting of symptoms. We defined fever and cough as specific symptoms, and defined a prodromal phase as the presence of non-specific symptoms for at least 1 day before the onset of specific symptoms. Whole genome sequencing was used to confirm epidemiological links and clarify transmission events where contact histories were ambiguous; integration with epidemiological data enabled precise reconstruction of exposure events and incubation periods. Secondary attack rates were calculated as the number of cases divided by the number of contacts, using Fisher's exact test for the 95% CIs. Findings Patient 0 was a Chinese resident who visited Germany for professional reasons. 16 subsequent cases, often with mild and non-specific symptoms, emerged in four transmission generations. Signature mutations in the viral genome occurred upon foundation of generation 2, as well as in one case pertaining to generation 4. The median incubation period was 4·0 days (IQR 2·3–4·3) and the median serial interval was 4·0 days (3·0–5·0). Transmission events were likely to have occurred presymptomatically for one case (possibly five more), at the day of symptom onset for four cases (possibly five more), and the remainder after the day of symptom onset or unknown. One or two cases resulted from contact with a case during the prodromal phase. Secondary attack rates were 75·0% (95% CI 19·0–99·0; three of four people) among members of a household cluster in common isolation, 10·0% (1·2–32·0; two of 20) among household contacts only together until isolation of the patient, and 5·1% (2·6–8·9; 11 of 217) among non-household, high-risk contacts. Interpretation Although patients in our study presented with predominately mild, non-specific symptoms, infectiousness before or on the day of symptom onset was substantial. Additionally, the incubation period was often very short and false-negative tests occurred. These results suggest that although the outbreak was controlled, successful long-term and global containment of COVID-19 could be difficult to achieve. Funding All authors are employed and all expenses covered by governmental, federal state, or other publicly funded institutions.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                patrick.brzoska@uni-wh.de
                Journal
                Nurs Health Sci
                Nurs Health Sci
                10.1111/(ISSN)1442-2018
                NHS
                Nursing & Health Sciences
                John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd (Melbourne )
                1441-0745
                1442-2018
                27 March 2022
                27 March 2022
                : 10.1111/nhs.12937
                Affiliations
                [ 1 ] Faculty of Health, School of Medicine, Health Services Research Witten/Herdecke University Witten Germany
                [ 2 ] Department of Epidemiology and International Public Health School of Public Health, Bielefeld University Bielefeld Germany
                [ 3 ] Department of Nursing and Health Services Research School of Public Health, Bielefeld University Bielefeld Germany
                Author notes
                [*] [* ] Correspondence

                Patrick Brzoska, Health Services Research, Faculty of Health, School of Medicine, Witten/Herdecke University, Alfred‐Herrhausen‐Straße 50, D‐58448 Witten, Germany.

                Email: patrick.brzoska@ 123456uni-wh.de

                Author information
                https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6489-5198
                Article
                NHS12937
                10.1111/nhs.12937
                9115354
                35289050
                5fa26eaa-372e-49e5-bf47-1c52bbd68296
                © 2022 The Authors. Nursing & Health Sciences published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.

                This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non‐commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

                History
                : 21 February 2022
                : 27 December 2021
                : 02 March 2022
                Page count
                Figures: 0, Tables: 1, Pages: 9, Words: 7340
                Categories
                Research Article
                Research Articles
                Custom metadata
                2.0
                corrected-proof
                Converter:WILEY_ML3GV2_TO_JATSPMC version:6.1.6 mode:remove_FC converted:18.05.2022

                caregiver burden,disaster relief,covid‐19,family caregivers,sars‐cov‐2,social media

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