Feelings Losses And Opportunities Emerging From The Pandemic

Citation

McCabe L, Brown T & Douglas C (2022) Feelings Losses And Opportunities Emerging From The Pandemic [HAGIS: Covid-19 and You - a qualitative study of older adults' experiences of living through COVID-19]. Douglas E (Project Leader) UKRI. Stirling. https://www.hagis.scot/_files/ugd/5d9fd0_55c2be6887a743bb9139ff98f4773f5d.pdf

Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted all our daily lives. This rapid report describes the overarching themes arising from an in-depth qualitative study that explored the lived experience of the pandemic of adults aged over 50 living across Scotland. A co-production approach was undertaken to data collection and data analysis by a team of three academics and seven co-researchers. This rapid report is the first in a series of three reports detailing findings from the qualitative field work. This report focusses on the subjective experiences of older people during the pandemic. Our participants in the interviews and focus groups expressed feelings in relation to various situations created by the pandemic such as restrictions and measures of infection control; lack of or too much communication; and contradictory or non-sensical guidelines. Participants responded to the pandemic in different ways including acceptance of the situation; gratitude for health services or community work; and a strong feeling of self-sacrifice as a way of contributing to mitigating the current situation and moving towards post-pandemic recovery. Participants also expressed feelings in relation to not being able to carry on with or experience everyday life in a normal way (‘missing things’) or having to return to a ‘new normal’ that felt uncertain.