Challenging times: disconnects between patient and professional temporalities in chronic condition management

To stay or not to stay at home? The unintended consequences of public health advice for older adults in the context of Covid-19 and urban heat

Stay-at-home advice is one of the most widespread public health solutions to various health risks, including Covid-19 and heat stress. Authorities often direct this recommendation to adults above 65 years old, a group particularly vulnerable to multiple risks. While this advice aims to save lives, when prolonged it also comes with various negative unintended consequences. It increases older adults' isolation and loneliness, which negatively affects their mental and physical health, as well as their wellbeing and quality of life. This article builds on the findings from two European projects that studied, respectively, Covid-19 responses and adaptation to urban heat. First, we analyze the data from semi-structured interviews about Covid-19 responses and their consequences conducted with local experts in Vienna, Austria, in 2021-22. Second, we analyze the data from focus groups on experiencing and adapting to urban heat conducted with older adults in Warsaw, Poland, in 2021. This article demonstrates why stay-at-home advice might be problematic for older adults who live alone and how it leads to their increased isolation and loneliness when it stops being a short-term measure and becomes a prolonged experience. We examine differences and similarities between the two cases to discuss the shortcomings in care for older and frail people. We argue that public health recommendations should consider the issues of temporality, sociality and inequality when re-implementing the stay-at-home advice in the future. We also demonstrate that measures focusing on community wellbeing, instead of thinking only in terms of individual health and responsibility, might be a way to address those issues.

Long COVID quality of life and healthcare experiences in the UK: a mixed method online survey

PURPOSE

The complexity of long COVID and its diverse symptom profile contributes to unprecedented challenges for patients, clinicians, and healthcare services. The threat of long COVID remains ignored by Governments, the media and public health messaging, and patients' experiences must be heard through understanding of the lived experience. This study aimed to understand the lived experience of those living with long COVID.

METHODS

An online web-based survey was designed using Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) to increase understanding of the lived experiences of long COVID, and was distributed through PPIE groups, social media, and word of mouth. The survey used closed and open questions relating to demographics, pre- and post-COVID-19 health quality of life, daily activities and long COVID experiences.

RESULTS

Within our sample of 132 people living with long COVID, the findings highlight that individuals are being severely impacted by their symptoms and are unable to or limited in participating in their daily activities, reducing quality of life. Long COVID places strain on relationships, the ability to live life fully and is detrimental to mental health. Varying health care experiences are described by participants, with reports of medical gaslighting and inadequate support received.

CONCLUSIONS

Long COVID has a severe impact on the ability to live life fully, and strains mental health. The appropriate mechanisms and support services are needed to support those living with long COVID and manage symptoms.

Integrating person-centred care and social justice: a model for practice with larger-bodied patients

Person-centred care (PCC) has been touted as a promising paradigm for improving patients' experiences and outcomes, and the overall therapeutic environment for a range of health conditions, including obesity. While this approach represents an important shift away from a paternalistic and disease-focused paradigm, we argue that PCC must be explicitly informed by a social justice lens to achieve optimal conditions for health and well-being. We suggest that existing studies on PCC for obesity only go so far in achieving social justice goals as they operate within a biomedical model that by default pathologises excess weight and predetermines patients' goals as weight loss and/or management, regardless of patients' embodied experiences and desires. There remains a dearth of empirical research on what social justice-informed PCC looks like in practice with larger patients. This interview study fills a research gap by exploring the perspectives of 1) health practitioners (n=22) who take a critical, social justice-informed approach to weight and 2) larger patients (n=20) served by such practitioners. The research question that informed this paper was: What are the characteristics of social justice-informed PCC that play out in clinical interactions between healthcare practitioners and larger-bodied patients? We identified five themes, namely: 1) Integrating evidence-based practice with compassionate, narrative-based care; 2) Adopting a curious attitude about the patient's world; 3) Centring patients' own wisdom and expertise about their conditions; 4) Working within the constraints of the system to advocate for patients to receive equitable care; 5) Collaborating across professions and with community services to address the multifaceted nature of patient health. The findings illustrate that despite participants' diverse perspectives around weight and health, they shared a commitment to PCC by upholding patient self-determination and addressing weight stigma alongside other systemic factors that affect patient health outcomes.