Department of Psychology, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada.
College of Pharmacy and Nutrition, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada.
J Med Internet Res. 2021 Feb 3;23(2):e26254. doi: 10.2196/26254.
The COVID-19 pandemic is affecting people with dementia in numerous ways. Nevertheless, there is a paucity of research on the COVID-19 impact on people with dementia and their care partners.
Using Twitter, the purpose of this study is to understand the experiences of COVID-19 for people with dementia and their care partners.
We collected tweets on COVID-19 and dementia using the GetOldTweets application in Python from February 15 to September 7, 2020. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the tweets.
From the 5063 tweets analyzed with line-by-line coding, we identified 4 main themes including (1) separation and loss; (2) COVID-19 confusion, despair, and abandonment; (3) stress and exhaustion exacerbation; and (4) unpaid sacrifices by formal care providers.
There is an imminent need for governments to rethink using a one-size-fits-all response to COVID-19 policy and use a collaborative approach to support people with dementia. Collaboration and more evidence-informed research are essential to reducing COVID-19 mortality and improving the quality of life for people with dementia and their care partners.
COVID-19 大流行正在以多种方式影响痴呆症患者。然而，关于 COVID-19 对痴呆症患者及其护理人员的影响的研究甚少。
本研究旨在通过 Twitter 了解 COVID-19 对痴呆症患者及其护理人员的影响。
我们使用 Python 中的 GetOldTweets 应用程序于 2020 年 2 月 15 日至 9 月 7 日期间收集有关 COVID-19 和痴呆症的推文。采用主题分析法对推文进行分析。
通过逐行编码对 5063 条推文进行分析，我们确定了 4 个主要主题，包括（1）分离和丧失；（2）COVID-19 引起的困惑、绝望和被抛弃感；（3）压力和疲惫感加剧；以及（4）正式护理人员的无偿牺牲。
政府迫切需要重新考虑使用一刀切的方式来应对 COVID-19 政策，并采取协作方式来支持痴呆症患者。合作和更多基于证据的研究对于降低 COVID-19 死亡率以及改善痴呆症患者及其护理人员的生活质量至关重要。
