(Press-News.org) A UK wide survey of 2252 adults, carried out five weeks into the first lockdown revealed 95% of those who took part were following lockdown restrictions. Of that 95% more than 80% reported finding it challenging. Adjusting to changes in daily routines, and mental and physical health struggles were the most common challenges faced by participants. Women and adults under the age of 55 were most likely to report experiencing challenges.
The research, 'What challenges do UK adults face when adhering to COVID-19-related instructions? Cross-sectional survey in a representative sample'*, was published in the journal, Preventive Medicine today, 2 March. It was conducted by researchers at The Manchester Centre for Health Psychology and the National Institute for Health Research Greater Manchester Patient Safety Translational Research Centre (NIHR GM PSTRC). The Centre is a partnership between The University of Manchester and Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust. .
Dr Chris Keyworth, research fellow in the Behavioural Science sub theme at the GM PSTRC and lead for this study, said: "Our research shows that during the first UK lockdown a high proportion of the people we surveyed did stick to the government rules. Understanding the impact of this on mental health is vital when looking at how to encourage people to do this long term and into the future.
"The first step is to identify the biggest challenges people faced and for which age group and gender."
The challenge the most people reported facing was the changes in daily routines, followed by the impact on mental health and then the issues around physical health.
Dr Keyworth continued: "According to our survey more than 40% of people said they struggled with their mental health during the first lockdown. This is interesting because, in comparison, according to a 2016 study, one in six people reported experiencing a common mental health problem in a given week in England. This goes some way in quantifying the profound affect the restrictions had on the population at the time."
The research highlights the importance of tailoring public health messages to age groups, genders or those with certain characteristics. The study's findings suggest an urgent need to prioritise interventions which address the physical, psychological and social impacts of the pandemic. These may include interventions that aim to help people to change habits and support them in establishing new routines when faced with the sudden introduction of strict rules such as lockdown. Greater investment in services to improve physical and mental health that can be delivered remotely should also be a priority. Home-based interventions to promote physical health should be developed and more work put into improving access to healthcare professionals remotely.
These interventions should then be targeted at women, those under 55 and people without care commitments as they were identified as the most likely to struggle during a full lockdown.
Professor Chris Armitage, lead of the GM PSTRC's Behavioural Science sub theme, said: "The findings show that by-and-large, the British public have been adhering to government COVID-19 instructions, but following the government lockdown rules comes at a personal cost. Greater attention needs to be paid to how following the rules can be sustained with targeted support measures."
Dr Keyworth concluded: "Lockdown is undoubtedly challenging and, to ensure any future government restrictions and guidelines are followed it is important to learn from the behaviour of the population at a time when a high number of people were following the rules. We hope that our research will help to improve patient safety by aiding understanding. It can be used to guide the design of interventions and inform public health messaging both now and into the future."
INFORMATION:
Notes for editors:
*https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0091743521000426
About the NIHR Greater Manchester Translational Research Centre: The NIHR Greater Manchester Patient Safety Translational Research Centre is a partnership between The University of Manchester and Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust in collaboration with The University of Nottingham which aims to make healthcare safer in primary care and transitions of care. It's funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) for five years from 2017 until 2022 and is one of three PSTRC in England. The GM PSTRC is responsible for research across four themes: Safety Informatics, Medication Safety, Safer Care Systems and Transitions, and Safety in Marginalised Groups.
For more information visit - http://www.patientsafety.manchester.ac.uk/
About the University of Manchester: The University of Manchester, a member of the prestigious Russell Group, is the UK's largest single-site university with 38,600 students. It has 20 academic schools and hundreds of specialist research groups undertaking pioneering, multi-disciplinary teaching and research of worldwide significance. The University is one of the country's major research institutions, rated fifth in the UK in terms of 'research power' (REF 2014), and has had no fewer than 25 Nobel laureates either work or study there. The University had an annual income of £1 billion in 2014/15. Visit http://www.manchester.ac.uk
ABOUT THE NIHR: The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) is the nation's largest funder of health and care research. The NIHR:
Funds, supports and delivers high quality research that benefits the NHS, public health and social care.
Engages and involves patients, carers and the public in order to improve the reach, quality and impact of research
Attracts trains and supports the best researchers to tackle the complex health and care challenges of the future.
Invests in world-class infrastructure and a skilled delivery workforce to translate discoveries into improved treatments and services
Partners with other public funders, charities and industry to maximise the value of research to patients and the economy
The NIHR was established in 2006 to improve the health and wealth of the nation through research, and is funded by the Department of Health and Social Care. In addition to its national role, the NIHR supports applied health research for the direct and primary benefit of people in low- and middle-income countries, using UK aid from the UK government.
This work uses data provided by patients and collected by the NHS as part of their care and support and would not have been possible without access to this data. The NIHR recognises and values the role of patient data, securely accessed and stored, both in underpinning and leading to improvements in research and care. http://www.nihr.ac.uk/patientdata.
TAMPA, Fla. - Advanced melanoma is one of the deadliest types of cancer, with a 5-year survival rate of only 27% for patients with distant metastases. Recent advances in targeted therapies and immunotherapies have greatly improved patient prognosis; however, many patients eventually develop resistance and disease recurrence. Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center are investigating how to combine and sequence new therapies to improve survival. In a new article published in Cancer Immunology Research, the Moffitt team shows that sequential administration of immunotherapy followed by targeted therapy prolongs anti-tumor responses in preclinical models and may be a potential ...
A foundational study conducted by scientists at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) shows for the first time that white-rot fungi are able to use carbon captured from lignin as a carbon source.
The research confirms a hypothesis from Davinia Salvachúa Rodriguez, the senior author of a newly published paper. Until now, scientists were unsure whether white-rot fungi--the most efficient lignin-degrading organisms in nature--actually consume the products generated from breaking down lignin.
"What we have demonstrated here is that white-rot fungi can actually utilize lignin-derived aromatic compounds as a carbon source, which means they can eat them and utilize them to grow," Salvachúa said. "That is another strategy for carbon sequestration in ...
Inherited retinal dystrophy is a common cause of blindness, with as many as two million people suffering from the disorder globally. No effective treatment is available for retinal dystrophies. Gene therapy is expected to offer a solution, but developing such therapies is possible only when the genetic cause of the disease is known. Related mutations have been identified in more than 70 genes so far, but the genetic background of the disease remains unknown in as many as half of the patients.
"Retinal dystrophy has been described in over 100 dog breeds, with related investigations helping to identify new genes associated and pathogenic mechanisms with blindness across different ...
In a recent collaborative study led by the University of Maryland (UMD), researchers find that consumers tend to buy something less fuel efficient than they normally would for their second car after springing for an eco-friendly vehicle. While this sounds like an all-too-logical conclusion, the study reports a 57% reduction in the benefits of driving your fuel efficient car for carbon emissions purely based on the purchase of your second vehicle. Since about three-quarters of cars are purchased into multi-car households, these findings could have major implications for carbon emissions, and especially for the design of carbon mitigation programs like Cash-for-Clunkers and Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards that aren't taking ...
Philadelphia, March 2, 2021 - Researchers from the Mitochondrial Medicine Frontier Program at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) have demonstrated how one combination of therapies may be beneficial for patients with mitochondrial respiratory chain disorders. This preclinical research paves the way to develop more tailored treatment options for patients with inherited mitochondrial disease and acquired energy disorders. The findings emphasize the importance of rational therapeutic modeling to target specific cellular deficiencies and provide proper cellular nutrition as an effective means to manage mitochondrial disease.
The findings were published online ...
Optomechanical microcavities are extremely small structures with diameters of less than 10 micrometers (about a tenth of a human hair) inside which light and mechanical vibrations are confined. Thanks to their small size and to efficient microfabrication techniques that enable them to hold intense light energy and interact with mechanical waves, microcavities can be used as mass and acceleration sensors and in Raman scattering (a spectroscopy technique deployed to analyze materials, including gases, liquids, and solids). A sound understanding of these phenomena can contribute in future to advances in areas such as biomedicine, including the development of ...
The study gives the first detailed description of a volcanic eruption from Sierra Negra found on Isla Isabela - the largest of the Galápagos Islands and home to nearly 2,000 people.
The findings, published in Nature Communications, reveal how the volcano inflated and fractured before it erupted and captures a new level of detail for any eruption from a volcano on the islands.
Networks of ground-based seismic and GPS monitoring stations, and satellites, captured data for 13 years before Sierra Negra's eruption, in June 2018.
The surface of the volcano rose during this time, indicating a gradual accumulation of molten rock - known as magma - found in a reservoir under the ...
Ithaca, NY--The message about the bird-conservation benefits of shade-grown coffee may not be getting through to the people most likely to respond--birdwatchers. A team of researchers from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Virginia Tech surveyed birdwatchers to learn if they drank shade-grown coffee and, if not, why not. Their findings were published today in the journal People and Nature.
"One of the most significant constraints to purchasing bird-friendly coffee among those surveyed was a lack of awareness," said Alicia Williams, lead author and former research assistant at the Cornell Lab and Virginia Tech. "I was surprised to see that only 9 percent of those surveyed purchased bird-friendly ...
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- The liver has a rare superpower among body organs - the ability to regenerate, even if 70% of its mass is removed. It also keeps up its metabolic and toxin-removing work during the process of regeneration, thanks to a subset of cells that expand their workload while the rest focus on multiplication, a new study in mice found.
Furthermore, the cells of the liver communicate with each other to coordinate regeneration activity, which progresses from the center to the periphery of the missing liver lobes, researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign said.
"It's remarkable how we still don't understand many aspects of liver regeneration," said Illinois biochemistry professor Auinash ...
Researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Massachusetts General Hospital have identified a new drug that could prevent Alzheimer's disease by modulating, rather than inhibiting, a key enzyme involved in forming amyloid plaques in the brain. The study, which will be published March 2 in the Journal of Experimental Medicine (JEM), demonstrates that the drug is safe and effective in rodents and monkeys, paving the way for future clinical trials in humans.
A key pathological hallmark of Alzheimer's disease involves the formation of amyloid plaques composed of small protein fragments known as amyloid-β (Aβ) peptides. These peptides are generated ...
