Experiences of self‐care during the COVID‐19 pandemic among individuals with rheumatoid arthritis: A qualitative study

Objectives: This study aimed to explore the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on self-care of individuals living with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Methods: Guided by a constructivist, qualitative design, we conducted one-to-one in-depth telephone interviews between March and October 2020 with participants with RA purposively sampled for maximum variation in age, sex and education, who were participating in one of two ongoing randomized-controlled trials. An inductive, reflexive thematic analysis approach was used. Results: Twenty-six participants (aged 27–73 years; 23 females) in British Columbia, Canada were interviewed. We identified three themes: (1) Adapting to maintain self-care describes how participants took measures to continue self-care activities while preventing virus transmissions. While spending more time at home, some participants reported improved self-care. (2) Managing emotions describes resilience-building strategies such as keeping perspective, positive reframing and avoiding negative thoughts. Participants described both letting go and maintaining a sense of control to accommodate difficulties and emotional responses. (3) Changing communication with health professionals outlined positive experiences of remote consultations with health professionals, particularly if good relationships had been established prepandemic. Conclusion: The insights gained may inform clinicians and researchers on ways to support the self-care strategies of individuals with RA and other chronic illnesses during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings reveal opportunities to further examine remote consultations to optimize patient engagement and care. Patient or Public Contribution: This project is jointly designed and conducted with patient partners in British Columbia, Canada. Patient partners across the United Kingdom also played in a key role in providing interpretations of themes during data analysis.</p

Decision-making around COVID-19 public health measures and implications for self-care activities: experiences of persons with rheumatoid arthritis

Objective: to advance understanding of how persons with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) experience decision-making about adopting public health measures during the COVID-19 pandemic.Methods: persons living with RA partnered throughout this nested qualitative study. One-to-one semi-structured telephone interviews were conducted with participants with RA between December 2020 and December 2021. They were strategically sampled from a randomized controlled trial that was underway to test a physical activity counselling intervention. Analysis was guided by reflexive thematic analysis.Results: thirty-nine participants (aged 26-86; 36 females) in British Columbia, Canada were interviewed. We developed three themes. Participants described how their decision-making about public health measures related to 1) Upholding moral values of togetherness because decisions were intertwined with moral values of neighbourliness and reciprocity. Some adapted their self-care routines to uphold these moral values; 2) Relational autonomy: Supports and challenges, as they sometimes felt supported and undermined in different relational settings (e.g., by family, local community, provincial government); and 3) Differing trust in information sources, where decisions were shaped by the degree of faith they had in various information sources, including their rheumatologists.Conclusion: across themes, experiences of decision-making about public health measures during the pandemic were embedded with moral concepts of solidarity, autonomy, and trust, with implications for how persons with RA chose and sustained their self-care activities. Insights gained help sensitize researchers and clinicians to moral issues experienced by persons with RA, which may inform support for self-care activities during and after the pandemic

Judging where a ball will go: the case of curved free kicks in football

International audienceThis study examined whether adding spin to a ball in the free kick situation in football affects a professional footballer's perception of the ball's future arrival position. Using a virtual reality set-up, participants observed the flight paths of aerodynamically realistic free kicks with (+/- 600 rpm) and without sidespin. With the viewpoint being fixed in the centre of the goal, participants had to judge whether the ball would have ended up in the goal or not. Results show that trajectories influenced by the Magnus force caused by sidespin gave rise to a significant shift in the percentage of goal responses. The resulting acceleration that causes the ball to continually change its heading direction as the trajectory unfolds does not seem to be taken into account by the participants when making goal judgments. We conclude that the visual system is not attuned to such accelerated motion, which may explain why goalkeepers appear to misjudge the future arrival point of such curved free kicks