Domiciliary care workers (DCWs) continued to provide care to adults in their own homes throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. The evidence of the impact of COVID-19 on health outcomes of DCWs is currently mixed. The OSCAR study will quantify the impact of COVID-19 upon health outcomes of DCWs in Wales, explore causes of variation and extrapolate to the rest of the UK DCW population. An embedded qualitative study aimed to explore DCW experiences during the pandemic, including factors that may have varied risk of exposure to COVID-19 and adverse health and wellbeing outcomes. Registered DCWs working throughout Wales were invited to participate in a semi-structured telephone interview. 24 DCWs were interviewed between February and July 2021. Themes were identified through inductive analysis using thematic coding. Several themes emerged relating to risk of exposure to COVID-19. First, general changes to the role of the DCW during the pandemic were identified. Second, practical challenges for DCWs in the workplace were reported, including staff shortages, clients and families not following safety procedures, initial shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE), DCW criticism of standard use PPE, client difficulty with PPE and management of rapid antigen testing. Third, lack of government/employer preparation for a pandemic was described, including the reorganisation of staff clients and services, inadequate or confusing information for many DCWs, COVID-19 training and the need for improved practical instruction and limited official standard risk assessments for DCWs. Pressure to attend work and perceptions of COVID-19 risk and vaccination was also reported. In summary, this paper describes the risk factors associated with working during the pandemic. We have mapped recommendations for each problem using these qualitative findings including tailored training and better support for isolated team members and identified the required changes at several socio-ecological levels.

中文翻译：

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“我不是有意无礼，但我在的时候你能戴上口罩吗？” COVID-19 大流行期间威尔士家庭护理人员所经历风险的定性研究

在整个 COVID-19 大流行期间，家庭护理人员 (DCW) 继续在自己家中为成年人提供护理。目前，关于 COVID-19 对 DCW 健康结果影响的证据不一。OSCAR 研究将量化 COVID-19 对威尔士 DCW 健康结果的影响，探索变化的原因并推断到英国其他 DCW 人口。一项嵌入式定性研究旨在探讨 DCW 在大流行期间的经历，包括可能具有不同 COVID-19 暴露风险以及不良健康和福祉结果的因素。在威尔士各地工作的注册 DCW 受邀参加半结构式电话采访。24 名 DCW 在 2021 年 2 月至 2021 年 7 月期间接受了采访。主题是通过使用主题编码的归纳分析来确定的。出现了几个与接触 COVID-19 的风险有关的主题。首先，确定了大流行期间 DCW 角色的总体变化。其次，报告了 DCW 在工作场所面临的实际挑战，包括人员短缺、客户和家庭不遵守安全程序、个人防护设备 (PPE) 最初短缺、DCW 对标准使用 PPE 的批评、客户难以使用 PPE 和快速抗原管理测试。第三，描述了政府/雇主对大流行病缺乏准备，包括员工客户和服务的重组、许多 DCW 的信息不足或令人困惑、COVID-19 培训以及需要改进实践指导和对 DCW 的官方标准风险评估有限. 还报告了参加工作的压力以及对 COVID-19 风险和疫苗接种的看法。总之，本文描述了与大流行期间工作相关的风险因素。我们使用这些定性发现为每个问题制定了建议，包括量身定制的培训和更好地支持孤立的团队成员，并确定了几个社会生态层面所需的变化。