The pandemic we are experiencing, caused by COVID-19, and the State of Emergency are affecting the lives of all Portuguese. In this state of social isolation and quarantine, higher education institutions have increased scientific and social responsibilities to help respond to the social challenges that will be posed to us all.

A group of researchers from the University of Algarve wants to contribute to a better understanding of the situation we are experiencing, through the production of useful information that can support decision making.

This study aims to: (i) understand how this situation is affecting the anxiety of residents in Portugal and identify the strategies used by individuals to deal with this situation; (ii) characterize health-related quality of life and understand how it is being affected by this exceptional situation of forced quarantine; (iii) to contribute to a better understanding of the situation we are experiencing, through the production of useful information that can support decision making in terms of public policy development.

Data collection will be done by questionnaire, applied by electronic interview to a snowball sample of individuals residing in Portugal, over 18 years of age, and who are in quarantine due to the pandemic we are experiencing, caused by the COVID-19. Individuals will be invited by email and telephone to participate in the study, with the study previously presented and their objectives described, being free to accept or refuse to participate. If they accept to participate, they will complete a questionnaire with a maximum duration of 5 minutes. The data collected is anonymous and confidential, and it is not possible at any time to establish a link between the answers given and the individuals who agreed to participate.

The questionnaire applied is based on two questionnaires developed by foreign researchers (Spitzer et al. 2006; Herdman et al., 2011), are widely known by the research community in the area and have already been translated and validated for Portugal by other researchers (Sousa et al., 2015; Ferreira et al., 2019).

References:

Ferreira, P. L., Antunes, P., Ferreira, L. N., Pereira, L. N., & Ramos-Goñi, J. (2019). A hybrid modelling approach for eliciting health states preferences: the Portuguese EQ-5D-5L value set. Quality of Life Research. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-019-02226-5.

Herdman, M., Gudex, C., Lloyd, A., Janssen, M., Kind, P., Parkin, D., et al. (2011). Development and preliminary testing of the new five-level version of EQ5D (EQ-5D-5L). Quality of Life Research, 20(10), 1727-1736.

Sousa et al. (2015) Reliability and validity of the Portuguese version of the Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD-7) scale Health and Quality of Life Outcomes (2015) 13:50DOI 10.1186/s12955-015-0244-2.

Spitzer RL, Kroenke K, Williams JBW, Lowe B. A brief measure for assessing generalized anxiety disorder. Arch Intern Med. 2006;166:1092-1097. doi:10.1001/archinte.166.10.1092