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Zimmermann BM. Swiss residents' information behavior perceptions during the COVID-19 pandemic: A longitudinal qualitative study. Soc Sci Med 2024; 344:116647. [PMID: 38335716 DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2024.116647] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/29/2023] [Revised: 12/27/2023] [Accepted: 02/02/2024] [Indexed: 02/12/2024]
Abstract
People's information behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic was challenged through vast amounts of information, misinformation, and disinformation. This study sets out to address the research gap of longitudinal, qualitative inquiries about how people's information behavior changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. It aims to assess how residents of German-speaking Switzerland perceived and evaluated information gathering during a global health crisis. As part of the "Solidarity in Times of a Pandemic" (SolPan) Research Commons, 83 semi-structured interviews with residents of German-speaking Switzerland were conducted in April 2020 (T1), October 2020 (T2), and October 2021 (T3). People were asked about their lived experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. Qualitative data analysis followed a reflexive thematic analysis approach, using Wilson's model of information behavior as a theoretical framework. Participants perceived high-quality journalistic news media, the Swiss national government, scientific experts, and their direct social environment as trustworthy information sources. They were motivated to gather information through the wish of gaining agency and certainty in the context of a major, global health crisis. Intervening variables that hindered information seeking included a perceived lack of agency, habituation effects in the later stages of the pandemic, information overload, inconsistent information, and conspiracy theories. While information needs were generally high in T1, participants expressed a growing extent of information fatigue in T2. In T3, the most prominent themes were conflicting information and differing interpretations, which led to an increased perception of societal polarization, which was perceived as a direct consequence of participants' information behavior. This finding is contextualized through established models of attitude formation: The study indicates how participants formed rather stable attitudes over time and how this led to a growing polarization and societal segmentation as the pandemic progressed. Practical implications regarding how to meet such societal polarization during crises are discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bettina M Zimmermann
- Institute of Philosophy and Multidisciplinary Center for Infectious Diseases, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland; Institute of History and Ethics in Medicine, TUM School of Medicine and Health, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany; Institute for Biomedical Ethics, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
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Boydell K, Lupton D. Bearing witness poetically in a pandemic: documenting suffering and care in conditions of physical isolation and uncertainty. Med Humanit 2024; 50:52-59. [PMID: 38164553 DOI: 10.1136/medhum-2023-012768] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 11/21/2023] [Indexed: 01/03/2024]
Abstract
The COVID-19 crisis is still affecting millions of people worldwide. However, government and mass media attention to the continuing loss of life, severe illness and prolonged effects of COVID-19 has subsided, rendering the suffering of those who have become ill or disabled, or who have lost loved ones to the disease, largely hidden from view. In this article, we employ autoethnographic poetic inquiry from the perspective of a mother/carer whose young adult daughter became critically ill and hospitalised after becoming infected while the mother herself was isolating at home due to her own COVID-19 diagnosis. The first author created a poem from notes she had made in a journal from telephone conversations and messages with the healthcare providers caring for her daughter. The second author responded to the poem, identifying the feelings and meanings it surfaced. Together, the authors draw on scholarship discussing concepts of uncertainty, liminality, moral distress, bearing witness and illness narratives to reflect on how autoethnographic poetic inquiry can document and make visible COVID-19-related suffering.
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Affiliation(s)
- Katherine Boydell
- Black Dog Institute, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
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Schönweitz FB, Zimmermann BM, Hangel N, Fiske A, McLennan S, Sierawska A, Buyx A. Solidarity and reciprocity during the COVID-19 pandemic: a longitudinal qualitative interview study from Germany. BMC Public Health 2024; 24:23. [PMID: 38166737 PMCID: PMC10763370 DOI: 10.1186/s12889-023-17521-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/22/2023] [Accepted: 12/18/2023] [Indexed: 01/05/2024] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND While solidarity practices were important in mitigating the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, their limits became evident as the pandemic progressed. Taking a longitudinal approach, this study analyses German residents' changing perceptions of solidarity practices during the COVID-19 pandemic and examines potential reasons for these changes. METHODS Adults living in Germany were interviewed in April 2020 (n = 46), October 2020 (n = 43) and October 2021 (n = 40) as part of the SolPan Research Commons, a large-scale, international, qualitative, longitudinal study uniquely situated in a major global public health crisis. Interviews were analysed using qualitative content analysis. RESULTS While solidarity practices were prominently discussed and positively evaluated in April 2020, this initial enthusiasm waned in October 2020 and October 2021. Yet, participants still perceived solidarity as important for managing the pandemic and called for institutionalized forms of solidarity in October 2020 and October 2021. Reasons for these changing perceptions of solidarity included (i) increasing personal and societal costs to act in solidarity, (ii) COVID-19 policies hindering solidarity practices, and (iii) a perceived lack of reciprocity as participants felt that solidarity practices from the state were not matching their individual efforts. CONCLUSIONS Maintaining solidarity contributes to maximizing public health during a pandemic. Institutionalized forms of solidarity to support those most in need contribute to perceived reciprocity among individuals, which might increase their motivation to act in solidarity. Thus, rather than calling for individual solidarity during times of crisis, authorities should consider implementing sustaining solidarity-based social support systems that go beyond immediate crisis management.
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Affiliation(s)
- Franziska B Schönweitz
- Institute of History and Ethics in Medicine, Department of Clinical Medicine, TUM School of Medicine and Health, TUM School of Social Sciences and Technology, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany
| | - Bettina M Zimmermann
- Institute of History and Ethics in Medicine, Department of Clinical Medicine, TUM School of Medicine and Health, TUM School of Social Sciences and Technology, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany.
- Institute of Philosophy and Multidisciplinary Center for Infectious Diseases, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
| | - Nora Hangel
- Institute of History and Ethics in Medicine, Department of Clinical Medicine, TUM School of Medicine and Health, TUM School of Social Sciences and Technology, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany
- Leibniz Center for Science and Society (LCSS), Leibniz University of Hannover, Hannover, Germany
| | - Amelia Fiske
- Institute of History and Ethics in Medicine, Department of Clinical Medicine, TUM School of Medicine and Health, TUM School of Social Sciences and Technology, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany
| | - Stuart McLennan
- Institute of History and Ethics in Medicine, Department of Clinical Medicine, TUM School of Medicine and Health, TUM School of Social Sciences and Technology, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany
| | - Anna Sierawska
- Institute of History and Ethics in Medicine, Department of Clinical Medicine, TUM School of Medicine and Health, TUM School of Social Sciences and Technology, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany
- Institute for History of Medicine, Technical University of Dresden, Dresden, Germany
| | - Alena Buyx
- Institute of History and Ethics in Medicine, Department of Clinical Medicine, TUM School of Medicine and Health, TUM School of Social Sciences and Technology, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany
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Pietrzak-Franger M, Elsner AM. Medical Humanities in Transition. Med Humanit 2023; 49:501-502. [PMID: 38114274 DOI: 10.1136/medhum-2023-012853] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 11/14/2023] [Indexed: 12/21/2023]
Affiliation(s)
| | - Anna M Elsner
- School of Medicine, University of St Gallen, St Gallen, Switzerland
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