Concerns and Support after One Year of COVID-19 in Austria: A Qualitative Study Using Content Analysis with 1505 Participants

Schaffler, Yvonne; Gächter, Afsaneh; Dale, Rachel; Jesser, Andrea; Probst, Thomas; Pieh, Christoph

doi:10.3390/ijerph18158218

Submit to this Journal Review for this Journal Edit a Special Issue

Article Menu

...

Open AccessArticle

Concerns and Support after One Year of COVID-19 in Austria: A Qualitative Study Using Content Analysis with 1505 Participants

^*,†

^†,

and

Department for Psychotherapy and Biopsychosocial Health, Danube University Krems, 3500 Krems, Austria

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

^†

Shared first authorship.

Academic Editor: Liliana Cori

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(15), 8218; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18158218

Received: 10 May 2021 / Revised: 19 July 2021 / Accepted: 28 July 2021 / Published: 3 August 2021

(This article belongs to the Section Mental Health)

View Full-Text Download PDF

Browse Figures

Citation Export

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent governmental restrictions have had a major impact on the daily lives of Austrians and negatively affected their mental health. A representative sample of N = 1505 individuals was recruited via Qualtrics^® to participate in an online survey between 23 December 2020 and 4 January 2021. A qualitative study design was used to determine the problem areas that emerged since the beginning of the pandemic (question 1), the factors that were the source of the greatest current concern (question 2), the biggest worries when thinking about the future (question 3), and what the most important source of support (question 4) during the pandemic was. The written responses were analyzed using conventional content analysis following a framework for qualitative research and reported in the form of descriptive statistics. Restrictions imposed by the government, sociopolitical developments, work- and health-related issues, and economic disruptions were identified as being the greatest concerns. Conversely, social contacts within and outside the family were the most important source of support, followed by recreational activities and distraction. Greater consideration should be given to psychosocial factors in future decisions to contain the pandemic. More detailed qualitative research, in particular, to collect the personal experience of more vulnerable groups such as young people, women, and the unemployed, is needed. View Full-Text

Keywords: distress; problem areas; concerns; stress coping; COVID-19 pandemic; Austria

▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

Supplementary Material

Supplementary File 1:
ZIP-Document (ZIP, 69 KiB)

Share and Cite

MDPI and ACS Style

Schaffler, Y.; Gächter, A.; Dale, R.; Jesser, A.; Probst, T.; Pieh, C. Concerns and Support after One Year of COVID-19 in Austria: A Qualitative Study Using Content Analysis with 1505 Participants. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18, 8218. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18158218

AMA Style

Schaffler Y, Gächter A, Dale R, Jesser A, Probst T, Pieh C. Concerns and Support after One Year of COVID-19 in Austria: A Qualitative Study Using Content Analysis with 1505 Participants. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2021; 18(15):8218. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18158218

Chicago/Turabian Style

Schaffler, Yvonne, Afsaneh Gächter, Rachel Dale, Andrea Jesser, Thomas Probst, and Christoph Pieh. 2021. "Concerns and Support after One Year of COVID-19 in Austria: A Qualitative Study Using Content Analysis with 1505 Participants" International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 18, no. 15: 8218. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18158218

Find Other Styles

Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.

Article Metrics

Abstract views Pdf views Html views

Article Menu

Concerns and Support after One Year of COVID-19 in Austria: A Qualitative Study Using Content Analysis with 1505 Participants

Abstract

Supplementary Material

Share and Cite

Article Metrics

Article Access Statistics

Article Access Map by Country/Region

Further Information

Guidelines

MDPI Initiatives

Follow MDPI