Social Connectedness in a Locked-Down World: A Phenomenological Study of Older Adults during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article deals with a very important topic that is little explored.

The advantages are:

1. the subject of research on the elderly in a pandemic

2. correct research methodology based on interviews

3. there is a lack of research-based social action, and the results of this article complement this.

Defects:

1. small number of people in the study group

Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

Unless it is not presented like, I think the main topic of the text it is the link between social capital or social connectedness with mental health, it has been already investigated, such as by Gao et al. (2014) “who evaluated 2796 employees from 35 diverse workplaces in Shanghai. Social capital was measured by a validated and tested 8-item instrument, and mental health by the World Health Organization-Five Well-Being Index.”

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/psychology/social-connectedness

There is no process of justification and selection of the sample: Thirteen in-depth interviews were conducted with a cohort of participants aged 60+ 183 living in the city of Bristol in Southwest England. But why there? There are no sample selection criteria. Why these people are and not others?

The authors do not justify why just only 13 people, representatives of what population or group are? As advertised in the title it does not turn out to be so, at least it is not representative of older people in the UK or only in a city, a region?

13 people of whom and who can be representative? Plus, 13 people from a sample whose overall logic seems not clear, not only in terms of race but also of other variables that are more representative of a population or community.

Apparently, a call was made via Facebook to which, logically, there was not the expected response. But the scientific objective remains unfulfilled: the sample must be representative of X. Also, the use of digital technics and social networks for doing the interviews requires at least a brief explanation about the quality of this digital sessions. We still on the discussion about what it is positive and what not about this kind of remote interviews.

Among the main results, the supposed need and priority of social capital by the elderly, seems not entirely correct, it should be refined and specified more because indeed there are no hypotheses, and not clear and opportune research questions. It is not clear what the contribution is, since it is a fact that human contact and social relationships are even more necessary for elderly people under forced confinement. How do you know that no or yes is a matter of older people? with a comparative sample or through standardized tests or with a statistically representative sample of both older adults and other ages, but apparently none of these methodologies are followed.

But also, the political organization of the United Kingdom does not have as one of its dominant variables the race with the same importance and follow-up as in the USA.

There is a temporary cut, but it does not appear in the introduction.

There is no theoretical framework. What is meant by each key concept? For example, identity is a factor of resilience? Maybe it is not identity, but an identification with a social function, with a position in society that gives greater personal security and more social capital.

There is no information that allows contextualizing who the subjects are, and information on who the interviewers are is also needed, in addition to their age and that they obviously lived through the pandemic, it does say This 180 is of specific relevance to our study, given that interviews took place while the research 181 team were experiencing the same pandemic restrictions through their own life-worlds. In addition to being logical because it is a pandemic, what does this imply in the interpretation? What are the determinants of interpretation? Educational level, social class, race, etc. But more important is that authors declared were following the COREQ checklist follow-up (Tong A, Sainsbury P, Craig J.) a consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research (COREQ) and yes, there is some evidence of its application, not with the dedication that following each criteria implies, but more importantly, the use of this COREQ is not reflected in the analysis.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK554122/

It is somewhat strange why they lament that the 13 people are white, apparently of the same race, but the ethnic origin variable does break with the uniformity of the sample, that is, for the results of the investigation the change of skin color is not as important as ethnic origin...

“As the study progressed, it became clear that both men and participants from minor-207 ity ethnic backgrounds were not coming forward to participate in the study, so direct 208 emails were subsequently sent out to men's groups, repair cafes and leaders of community 209 activities for local Somali and South Asian communities…In total, three participants responded to our advert through the two local organisa-211 tion's social media channels and mailing lists ; seven were directly recruited as contacts of 212 the CRs; one was recruited via the Virtual Activity Group and two responded to a direct 213 email sent to a men's activity group. Sadly, our efforts to recruit non-White participants 214 were unsuccessful.

Finally, and in consequence with all above, I suggest with all respect to strength theoretical framework, to analyze the results following step by step the 32 items of the COREQ and to analyze again ideas and paragraphs about race.

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors:

Congratulations on the paper you have produced. It is highly intriguing and continues to shed light on the adaptability and resilience exhibited by elderly people during the COVID. The process of learning has endured, enabling them to remain actively engaged. I extend my gratitude for your contributions. 

Best regards

Author Response

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Reviewer 4 Report

Dear authors,

The article presents a relevant topic that fits in with the focus of the journal. However, you should improve: take care of the abstract of your work because it puts "background" and other details linked to the citation and referencing rules of the journal. Please review these aspects. Similarly, the methodology section could be explained in more detail; it is not clear where the interviews were conducted. It is also not clear whether you used software to analyse the data. Something that is striking is that you refer to the participants by name instead of "interviewee 1" and so on; you should keep the confidentiality of the people who participate in academic studies. 

Author Response

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Reviewer 5 Report

good study, thing to improve:

      I.         INTRODUCTION: lines 30 to 36 I would put it at the end of the introduction, firstly I would explain the topic and finally what is done in the study.

     II.         MATERIAL AND METHODS: 

o   I would put the criteria of the study more explicitly

o   I don't see any sense in Table 1 in the material and methods section, I would put it at the beginning of the results.

o   would explain the statistical tests that were carried out.

   III.         In the RESULTS I miss tables, to make it easier to understand.

   IV.         I would put the limitations and ideas for future studies at the end of the DISCUSSION.

    V.         The CONCLUSION is only the last thing to finish the study.

good job, but can be improved.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

I understand, that our references, paradigm and experiences of what it is phenomenology are different, but also, that one of the most great values ​​of science and humanities becomes from freedom and liberty of speech. Thus, I respect and applause our different approaches and as reviewer I'm pretty sure, that our job is to review the internal coherence within the discourse itself but also the quality of the reflections and the logic of the integration of the components, so In addition to ontological judgments (which respond to what entities are in this case, what is the nature of phenomenology?) Unless It is pretty clear that this is not the appropriate space to have this valuable possible exchange of positions and ideas, it is clear to me that there is a long and wide demand for deep reflections between Heidegger and health care (https://ebn.bmj.com/content/21/4/96), and your proposal is not the case. It doesn't even have this purpose, I know, but this is what you ought to do at least in a brief form.

After this second review it seems clearer to me that there is no awareness of what Heidegger's interpretive phenomenology is, to the point that there is a certain incoherence or contradiction in saying that the sample is not representative of a generality but you wanted to include racial diversity. Indeed, are not races nothing than general groups with which people are identified?

Another sign which show us a misunderstanding of Heidegger’s philosophy, is that the only cite of the Freiburg Master, is to state something so general and even obvious, as ”Interpretive phenomenology is rooted in Heidegger's belief that individual's 'life-180 worlds' or realities are heavily influenced by the context and conditions of their daily lives” 181 [46].

But even more important and deep is that the possibility of putting in parentheses what one is in relation to the context and society definitively (“experiences are described and researcher perceptions are set aside or 'bracketed' in order to enter into the life world of the research participant without any presuppositions.” ) is only possible as a purpose, but not in reality, much less in Heidegger's work. The assumption works only through a metaphysical ontology that assumes the existence of an individual with the possibility of abstracting himself or herself from context or personal type, his or her generalities, even, just by intention. But, this is not the case of the criticism of metaphysics masterfully championed by Martin Heidegger.

The Freiburg master does not speak of individuals but of Dasein; It is not metaphysics, it is not something predetermined, like body or mind, so world is not the same as context, the generalities of Being are not the same as particularities of a context: Just like the pickles in the jar full of brine, the jar and the liquid are the world already integrated inside the pickles, at the same time, the brine already contains remains of the pickle. And this is just one of Heidegger's many most effective metaphors to make us understand that his phenomenology is not metaphysical, so forcing the limits of his thought to metaphysical models, made, at least, nonsense.

In fact, now I realize that this is what Rodríguez and Smith themselves are saying, unless much more synthetically: “Heidegger was interested in interpreting and describing human experience, but rejected the term “bracketing” because I have accepted that prior understandings impact our interpretations of “the world.”

In conclusion, given that this is not the space to discuss the nature of Heidegger´s work, but it is the space to, while respecting the diversity of approaches, stick to the original contributions of the authors, even more so if they are great classical authors. To publish this research I recommend the following:

1. Include all explanatory notes and bibliographic references about the sample size and representativeness of the study which are already in your answers to  my first review, otherwise the limitation of the sample size as well as the non-inclusion of representativeness criteria seem to be more of a justification for a limited and small sample than the attachment or follow-up. to the theoretical framework that interpretive phenomenology represents.

2. Remove all references to Heidegger's work, the references are the new ones that have been added in response to my review.

3. De-target the search for racial difference strictly adhering to the judgment of sample uniformity.

4. The other responses of the authors to the observations made are fine and should be applied, for example, identity is still used instead of sense of coherence.

Not just for the authors but for international western academy in general, the challenge of achieving an explanatory discourse that clearly and precisely connects the relationship between Heidegger's work and healthcare of everyday life, is hard work to do yet.

Not only is it a question of greater knowledge and handling of Heidegger's work, but it is even a basic question of the philosophy of science. A problem that even phenomenology has managed to contribute a lot to its resolution. It is the question that all knowledge, regardless of the great diversity of schools and philosophies that exist in the world, is deductive and not inductive in nature. In other words, I find here the need to coherently integrate empiricist philosophy with phenomenology and a conscious effort must be made to integrate these two extremely different philosophies from each other because from their ontology they are very different.

Author Response

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