Table Info

Table 4.

Challenges with face-to-face visits and the effect of COVID-19

Variable	Value	Total	Percentage*
Challenges with face-to-face visits	None	72	16.5%
	Time off issues	57	13.0%
	Timing inconvenience	54	12.4%
	Travelling costs	54	12.4%
	Physical illness/disability	46	10.5%
	Financial constraints	42	9.6%
	Needed company	34	7.8%
	Safety concerns	21	4.8%
	Fear of contagion	18	4.1%
	Weather uncertainty	18	4.1%
	Parking	5	1.1%
	No response	16	3.7%
Effect of COVID-19	No effect	164	53.8%
	Mostly negative	124	40.7%
	Benefitted	12	3.9%
	No response	5	1.6%
COVID-19 negative effects	Fear of interaction	103	22.9%
	Financial difficulty	102	22.7%
	None	69	15.3%
	Illness	59	13.1%
	Depression/apathy	45	10.0%
	Loss of job	22	4.9%
	Breakdown of family structure	17	3.8%
	Business closure	10	2.2%
	Death of breadwinner	10	2.2%
	Eviction	1	0.2%
	No response	12	2.7%

* Percentages rounded off to 1 decimal place

Supplementary materials

The supplementary material for this article is available at: https://www.explorationpub.com/uploads/Article/file/101152_sup_1.pdf.

Declarations

Disclaimer

Payment/services info: All authors have declared that no financial support was received from any organization for the submitted work.

Financial relationships: All authors have declared that they have no financial relationships at present or within the previous three years with any organizations that might have an interest in the submitted work.

Other relationships: All authors have declared that there are no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Mr. Daniel Cornwall for his assistance with data collection and data entry as a medical On-The-Job-Trainee.

Author contributions

ER: Conceptualization, Investigation, Methodology, Resources, Writing—original draft, Formal analysis, Project administration, Visualization, Writing—review & editing. HD: Conceptualization, Investigation, Methodology, Resources, Supervision. GR: Conceptualization, Methodology, Project administration, Validation, Supervision. All authors read and approved the submitted version.

Conflicts of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Ethical approval

This study was approved by the Bioethics Committee of the South West Regional Health Authority with reference/approval number 2023-09-18-14-17.

Consent to participate

Informed consent to participate in the study was obtained from all participants.

Consent to publication

Not applicable.

Availability of data and materials

The dataset for this study will not be shared on an open access forum in compliance with ethical regulations associated with the South West Regional Health Authority. Data can be accessed via contacting the corresponding author.

Funding

Not applicable.

Copyright

Publisher’s note

Open Exploration maintains a neutral stance on jurisdictional claims in published institutional affiliations and maps. All opinions expressed in this article are the personal views of the author(s) and do not represent the stance of the editorial team or the publisher.

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