Barriers and Benefits Experienced in Qualitative Geriatric Emergency Care Research during the Covid-19 Era

The Covid-19 pandemic has prompted changes to healthcare processes unseen in recent history, causing substantial stress for both patients and healthcare professionals. Daily life has changed dramatically for older people with frailty. Those living in our local (Leicester City) community have experienced the UK’s longest movement restrictions, with the clinically vulnerable having minimal direct contact with others for more than eighteen months. We are researchers in geriatric emergency medicine with both clinical and non-clinical backgrounds. Our recent qualitative studies have focused on understanding healthcare experiences and outcome goals among older people with frailty and acute care needs, aiming for their robust measurement and ultimate improvement. We had been performing interview and ethnographic studies when Covid-19 restrictions were imposed. In this article, we report our experience of the barriers and benefits for qualitative research presented by pandemic restrictions.