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CUPID COVID-19 Survey: parents’ experience of seeking healthcare for their children during COVID-19, March to May 2020.

CUPID COVID-19 Survey

Study number (SN): 0069-00

CITATION

ABOUT THE STUDY

The CUPID COVID-19 project is conducted by Therese McDonnell, Emma Nicholson and Ciara Conlon at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research, Education and Innovation in Health Systems (IRIS); UCD School of Nursing, Midwifery and Health Systems, University College Dublin.

The CUPID COVID-19 project is conducted in collaboration with Dr. Michael Barrett at Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) at Crumlin, Dr. Conor Hensey at CHI Temple St and Professor Fergal Cummins at Limerick University Hospital, each acting as co-investigators. Professor Eilish McAuliffe, UCD Health Systems and UCD IRIS, is a co-investigator.

The CUPID COVID-19 National Parents Survey, with a sample of 1,044 parents living throughout Ireland, was conducted from 5th June to 10th June 2020 to assess parents’ experience of seeking healthcare for their children during the restrictive public health measures or “lockdown” introduced in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The survey asked if parents needed to access healthcare for their child since the schools closed on 12th March and the lockdown was announced, and if they decided not to access the healthcare needed. They we also asked their level of hesitancy on accessing such healthcare during lockdown and as the country entered Phase One of reopening, the public health stage at the time of the survey. Respondents were asked if they had one or more of the following concerns on accessing healthcare for their child: contracting Covid-19, services would be too busy, the Government advice was to stay away, the service was needed by others, worried about being judged for using a service if it wasn’t an emergency, not having a car and didn’t want to use public transport, or some other reason.

Those who did access healthcare for their child indicated the type of healthcare accessed including face-to-face consultation with a GP, video or telephone consultation, attendance at the emergency department, or accessing another service.

Further questions included where respondents sought information about healthcare during the public health restrictions, the health status of members of their household, their experience of contracting and isolating due to COVID-19, and usual accessibility of healthcare. The stress scale from the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS-21) (Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995) was also included in the survey.

Demographic information was captured on gender, age, marital status, medical card/GP card ownership, county of resident, level of education, age and number of children, and if the respondent was a healthcare worker.

Funding Source:

Health Research Board COVID-19 pandemic rapid response funding call (COV19 2020). Grant Number: COV19-2020-07 

MAIN TOPICS

• Health Services

• Child Health

• Public Health

• COVID-19

COVERAGE, UNIVERSE, METHODOLOGY

Population

Respondents could be a parent or guardian living with a child under the age of 16 in Ireland.

62% were female, 83.7% were either married or cohabiting and 52.7% had a degree or postgraduate qualification. 53.1% had a child or children aged four or under, 52% had children aged 10 to 16, and 60.4% had more than one child. A comprehensive geographical spread was achieved, with each county of Ireland represented. 46% of participants reported that a person in their household had an underlying health condition, 34% of whom were children under 16. 1.3% of participants (n = 11) indicated they or another household member were confirmed cases of COVID-19, while 25% of participants stated they or another household member self-isolated due to COVID-19.  

Observation units

• Individual

Temporal coverage

From 03/2020 to 06/2020

Time dimension

Cross-sectional one-time study

Geographical coverage

Country: Ireland

Methods of data collection

• The survey was delivered online using Qualtrics™ software and panels of respondents.

Sampling procedures

Participants were recruited using Qualtrics™ market research panels which collects data from a diverse network of respondents. Respondents were randomly selected for the survey based on their existing profile which, for this study, was parents with children under the age of 16 in Ireland. Participants received an incentive for taking part.

Parents in all counties in the Republic of Ireland were invited to participate. Sampling also aimed to ensure minimum representation of parents with children falling into the following age categories:

0-4 - at least 25%

5-9 - at least 25%

10-16 - at least 25%

Response rate

Due to the variety of methods used to recruit participants, response rates are not known.

The following responses were excluded before reaching the final valid sample is 1044:

Screenouts - 154

• Not a parent - 88

• Not in Ireland - 30

• Did not consent - 25

• No children in target ages - 11

Overquotas (participants who started the survey once our quota had been met) - 135

Low-Quality responses - 63

• Speeders - 43

• Duplicate respondents – 20

The quota for responses was 1,000.

DATA AND DOCUMENTATION: FILES’ DESCRIPTION

Data (available through ISSDA application process)

Documentation (available for download)

LINKS

McDonnell T, McAuliffe E, Barrett M et al. CUPID COVID-19: emergency department attendance by paediatric patients during COVID-19 - project protocol. HRB Open Res 2020, 3:37 (https://doi.org/10.12688/hrbopenres.13066.2) 

ACCESS INFORMATION

Accessing the data

To access the data, please complete a ISSDA Data Request Form for Research Purposes, sign it, and send it to ISSDA by email.

For teaching purposes, please complete the ISSDA Data Request Form for Teaching Purposes, and follow the procedures, as above. Teaching requests are approved on a once-off module/workshop basis. Subsequent occurrences of the module/workshop require a new teaching request form.

Data will be disseminated on receipt of a fully completed, signed form. Incomplete or unsigned forms will be returned to the data requester for completion. 

Copyright

Acknowledgements

Any work based in whole or part on resources provided by the ISSDA, should  acknowledge: “CUPID COVID-19 Survey" and also ISSDA, in the following way: “Accessed via the Irish Social Science Data Archive - www.ucd.ie/issda”.

Citation requirement

The data and its creators shall be cited in all publications and presentations for which the data have been used. The bibliographic citation may be in the form suggested by the archive or in the form required by the publication.

Bibliographical citation

Therese McDonnell, Emma Nicholson and Ciara Conlon, UCD IRIS Centre (2021). CUPID COVID-19 Survey: parents’ experience of seeking healthcare for their children during COVID-19, March to May 2020. [dataset]. Version 1. Irish Social Science Data Archive. SN: 0069-00. URL http://www.ucd.ie/issda/data/cupidcovid19

Notification

The user shall notify the Irish Social Science Data Archive of all publications where she or he has used the data.