Managing Everyday Life in Double Exposure: Frail Older People's Experiences During a Pandemic.

Only 20 people were interviewed, all recruited through one Swedish trial of patients who came to emergency care and screened as frail. Everyone had to be able to hold a telephone interview in Swedish, and the researchers excluded people with cognitive or hearing problems that would get in the way, so the most impaired were not heard from. All interviews were by telephone. The authors say this cost them non-verbal communication and body language, that some participants had deteriorated cognitively and struggled to elaborate, and that those with hearing impairment sometimes needed things repeated. They also say some participants would have been better served by meeting in person, which the pandemic made impossible. Interviews ran from October 2020 to February 2021, spanning different seasons, infection levels and degrees of restriction, so what each person described may reflect when they were interviewed, and later participants had had longer to get used to the situation than earlier ones. Interviews were short, between 11 and 33 minutes with a median of 23, which limits how much depth could be reached on any one topic and may have suited some participants better than others. The participants were self-selected from those invited, and the analysis was carried out by the first author with the last author, with the other co-authors discussing the work as it progressed.

The only funder named is the University of Gothenburg. The article text supplied contains no competing-interest declaration, so nothing is stated about other financial or professional interests of the authors.

Do not read this as evidence about what the restrictions did to frail older people's health, or that any particular support would fix it. No outcomes were measured, there was no comparison group, and it is 20 people describing a year, all of them well enough to take a phone call, so the most disabled were not included.