Caregiving of Older Persons during the COVID-19 Pandemic in the Russian Arctic Province: Challenges and Practice

Home-Isolation Care in Newly COVID-19-Positive Elderly Patients: A Caregiver-Centric Explanatory Framework

Objectives: This community-based study aimed to identify the effect of different behavioral factors of family caregivers on the decision for home-isolation-based treatment of a new COVID-19-diagnosed elderly individual. It also explored the facilitators and barriers contributing to the decision-making process. Methods: A mixed-methods design was adopted to study the role of behavioral constructs such as risk tolerance, risk aversion, regret aversion, loss aversion, self-efficacy, and risk perception in healthcare-seeking decisions. By integrating the findings from the quantitative and qualitative parts, a framework was developed. Results: Self-efficacy, risk perception, and risk tolerance related to different issues were crucial factors behind the healthcare decision. However, regarding the various issues under consideration, risk perception followed by risk tolerance were the significant predictors for decision-making. Conclusion: To enhance appropriateness and equity in emergency healthcare-seeking, interventions should target risk tolerance and risk perception, taking into account the awareness levels of caregivers and the target population's risk and regret aversion. Such integrated approaches can improve the quality of care for elderly patients in home-based settings.

The second year of pandemic in the Arctic: examining spatiotemporal dynamics of the COVID-19 "Delta wave" in Arctic regions in 2021

The second year of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Arctic was dominated by the Delta wave that primarily lasted between July and December 2021 with varied epidemiological outcomes. An analysis of the Arctic’s subnational COVID-19 data revealed a massive increase in cases and deaths across all its jurisdictions but at varying time periods. However, the case fatality ratio (CFR) in most Arctic regions did not rise dramatically and was below national levels (except in Northern Russia). Based on the spatiotemporal patterns of the Delta outbreak, we identified four types of pandemic waves across Arctic regions: Tsunami (Greenland, Iceland, Faroe Islands, Northern Norway, Northern Finland, and Northern Canada), Superstorm (Alaska), Tidal wave (Northern Russia), and Protracted Wave (Northern Sweden). These regionally varied COVID-19 epidemiological dynamics are likely attributable to the inconsistency in implementing public health prevention measures, geographical isolation, and varying vaccination rates. A lesson remote and Indigenous communities can learn from the Arctic is that the three-prong (delay-prepare-respond) approach could be a tool in curtailing the impact of COVID-19 or future pandemics. This article is motivated by previous research that examined the first and second waves of the pandemic in the Arctic. Data are available at https://arctic.uni.edu/arctic-covid-19.