"Goodness and Kindness": Long-Distance Caregiving Through Volunteers During the COVID-19 Lockdown in India

Perceived loss of support to community caregivers during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) had a negative impact on the health and well-being of community caregivers. Few studies examine the pandemic's negative impact on the availability of social networks of caregivers. This article uses data collected during COVID-19 before vaccination to examine caregivers' reports of perceived lost and reduced network support. We assessed the personal networks of a nationally representative sample of 2214 community caregivers in the United States. We analyzed associations between caregiving factors and caregivers' perceptions of lost and reduced network support. Changes in care recipient living circumstances during COVID-19, longer-term caregiving, care recipient hearing/vision/mobility problems, caregiver travel/socializing restrictions, caregiver race/ethnicity, caregiver income, caregiver age, network connectivity, family relationships, and network members' age were associated with perceived lost/reduced support during the pandemic. Findings provide insights for the development of social network interventions to support caregivers and help them cultivate support networks resilient to public health crises.

Caring in crisis: The experiences of local religious leaders meeting community food needs in the Philippines during the COVID-19 pandemic

To respond to the unintended consequences of prevention measures to reduce COVID-19 transmission, individuals and groups, including religious leaders, have collaborated to provide care to those negatively impacted by these measures. Amid these various efforts and interventions, there is a need to deepen our understanding of diverse expressions of care across various geographical and social contexts. To address this need, the objective of this study was to investigate how religious leaders in the Philippines practiced care for their communities by meeting emergency food needs amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Guided by an ethics of care theoretical orientation, we conducted 25 remote semi-structured interviews with Filipino religious leaders who partnered with a Philippines-based non-governmental organization (NGO) to mobilize essential food aid to their local communities. Through defining the efforts and activities of these religious leaders as care work, we found that religious leader experiences revolved around navigating care responsibilities, caring alongside others, and engaging holistically with the care work. Additionally, we observed how contextual factors such as the humanitarian settings where religious leaders worked, the partnership with an NGO, and the positionality of local religious leaders within their communities, fundamentally shaped the care work. This study expands our understanding of how care is practiced and experienced and also brings greater visibility to the experiences and efforts of local religious leaders in responding to humanitarian emergencies.

Family Caregiver Support Interventions' Effectiveness Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The authors aimed to assess the impact of a family caregiver support intervention on caregiver burden and hospital readmission before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. By adopting a quasi-experimental design with no randomization, caregivers (n = 65) received a 90-day home visitation caregiver support intervention before the COVID-19 pandemic and caregivers (n = 41) received a 90-day phone-only visitation caregiver support intervention during the COVID-19 pandemic. Caregiver burden was collected in a survey, and hospital readmission of the care recipient was collected by hospital data. The results of a repeated-measures ANOVA demonstrated that participants of a family caregiver support intervention during the COVID-19 pandemic improved their caregiver burden statistically significantly more than those who received the intervention before the pandemic. There were no significant differences in hospital readmissions before or during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study demonstrates the efficacy of family caregiver support interventions over the phone during a pandemic.

Understanding the role and deployment of volunteers within specialist palliative care services and organisations as they have adjusted to the COVID-19 pandemic: A multi-national EAPC volunteer taskforce survey

BACKGROUND

Early indications were of a major decline in specialist palliative care volunteer numbers during COVID-19. It is important that ongoing deployment and role of volunteers is understood, given the dependence of many palliative care services on volunteers for quality care provision.

AIM

To understand the roles and deployment of volunteers in specialist palliative care services as they have adjusted to the impact of COVID-19.

DESIGN

Observational multi-national study, using a cross-sectional online survey with closed and free-text option questions. Disseminated via social media, palliative care networks and key collaborators from May to July 2021.

SETTING/PARTICIPANTS

Any specialist palliative care setting in any country, including hospices, day hospices, hospital based or community teams. The person responsible for managing the deployment of volunteers was invited to complete the survey.

RESULTS

Valid responses were received from 304 organisations (35 countries, 80.3% Europe). Most cared for adults only (60.9%), provided in-patient care (62.2%) and were non-profit (62.5%). 47.0% had cared for people with COVID-19. 47.7% changed the way they deployed volunteers; the mean number of active volunteers dropped from 203 per organisation to 33, and 70.7% reported a decrease in volunteers in direct patient/family facing roles. There was a shift to younger volunteers. 50.6% said this drop impacted care provision, increasing staff workload and pressure, decreasing patient support, and increasing patient isolation and loneliness.

CONCLUSION

The sustained reduction in volunteer deployment has impacted the provision of specialist palliative care. Urgent consideration must be given to the future of volunteering including virtual modes of delivery, micro-volunteering, and appealing to a younger demographic.

The Fear of COVID-19: Gender Differences among Italian Health Volunteers

Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the fear of being infected was a major concern, resulting in both physical and psychological effects. Despite several studies on fear of COVID-19 in the general population, the effects on healthy volunteers who face COVID-19 on the frontlines have not yet been investigated. Methods: An online survey on specific psychological variables related to COVID-19 was administered to 720 healthy volunteers, and gender differences were investigated. Results: The primary finding was that females showed higher scores in all dimensions assessed. A multiple linear regression conducted on both genders exhibited a similar pattern of predictors, highlighting the pivotal role of negative affect in the male group. Conclusions: The findings suggest that COVID-19 had significant effects on healthy volunteers, especially in the female group. Although the previous literature did not report the crucial role played by the negative affect in the male sample, these results highlight the need to deepen how both genders use different emotional strategies to cope with stressful situations. This study may be useful in the development of specific psychological support and ad hoc training for healthy volunteers.

Societal Narratives on Caregivers in Asia

Although there has been an increase in awareness of the struggles experienced by caregivers, discourse on caregiving remains confined mostly to academia, policy circles or the family unit. There have been suggestions that public discourse on informal caregiving dwells overwhelmingly on the outsize toll it takes on the health of caregivers. However, few studies have examined societal narratives on caregivers-a gap our study aims to fill. We leveraged an online media database of 12 billion words collated from over 30 million articles to explore societal narratives on caregivers in six Asian countries. Computational linguistics and statistical analysis were applied to study the content of narratives on caregivers. The prevalence of societal narratives on caregivers was highest in Singapore-five times higher than Sri Lanka, which evidenced the lowest prevalence. Findings reveal that the inadequacies of institutional care as well as the need to train and empower caregivers are pressing issues that need to be prioritized on the policy agenda in Asia. Of broader significance, the diverse capabilities across Asia present opportunities for cross-country learning and capacity-building.

Brief exposure to social media during the COVID-19 pandemic: Doom-scrolling has negative emotional consequences, but kindness-scrolling does not

People often seek out information as a means of coping with challenging situations. Attuning to negative information can be adaptive because it alerts people to the risks in their environment, thereby preparing them for similar threats in the future. But is this behaviour adaptive during a pandemic when bad news is ubiquitous? We examine the emotional consequences of exposure to brief snippets of COVID-related news via a Twitter feed (Study 1), or a YouTube reaction video (Study 2). Compared to a no-information exposure group, consumption of just 2-4 minutes of COVID-related news led to immediate and significant reductions in positive affect (Studies 1 and 2) and optimism (Study 2). Exposure to COVID-related kind acts did not have the same negative consequences, suggesting that not all social media exposure is detrimental for well-being. We discuss strategies to counteract the negative emotional consequences of exposure to negative news on social media.