Accessing veterinary healthcare during the COVID‐19 pandemic: A mixed‐methods analysis of UK and Republic of Ireland dog owners’ concerns and experiences – ScienceOpen
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      Accessing veterinary healthcare during the COVID‐19 pandemic: A mixed‐methods analysis of UK and Republic of Ireland dog owners’ concerns and experiences

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          Abstract

          Background

          This study explored dog owners’ concerns and experiences related to accessing veterinary healthcare during the COVID‐19 pandemic.

          Methods

          Data were obtained through two cross‐sectional owner‐completed surveys conducted in May (first nationwide lockdown) and October 2020 and owner‐completed diaries (April‐November 2020). Diaries and relevant open‐ended survey questions were analysed qualitatively to identify themes. Survey responses concerning veterinary healthcare access were summarised and compared using chi‐square tests.

          Results

          During the initial months of the pandemic, veterinary healthcare availability worried 32.4% (n = 1431/4922) of respondents. However, between 23 March and 4 November 2020, 99.5% (n = 1794/1843) of those needing to contact a veterinarian managed to do so. Delays/cancellations of procedures affected 28.0% (n = 82/293) of dogs that owners planned to neuter and 34.2% (n = 460/1346) of dogs that owners intended to vaccinate. Qualitative themes included COVID‐19 safety precautions, availability of veterinary healthcare and the veterinarian‐client relationship.

          Conclusion

          Veterinary healthcare availability concerned many owners during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Access to veterinary healthcare for emergencies remained largely available, but prophylactic treatments were delayed for some dogs.

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          Most cited references30

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          The behaviour change wheel: A new method for characterising and designing behaviour change interventions

          Background Improving the design and implementation of evidence-based practice depends on successful behaviour change interventions. This requires an appropriate method for characterising interventions and linking them to an analysis of the targeted behaviour. There exists a plethora of frameworks of behaviour change interventions, but it is not clear how well they serve this purpose. This paper evaluates these frameworks, and develops and evaluates a new framework aimed at overcoming their limitations. Methods A systematic search of electronic databases and consultation with behaviour change experts were used to identify frameworks of behaviour change interventions. These were evaluated according to three criteria: comprehensiveness, coherence, and a clear link to an overarching model of behaviour. A new framework was developed to meet these criteria. The reliability with which it could be applied was examined in two domains of behaviour change: tobacco control and obesity. Results Nineteen frameworks were identified covering nine intervention functions and seven policy categories that could enable those interventions. None of the frameworks reviewed covered the full range of intervention functions or policies, and only a minority met the criteria of coherence or linkage to a model of behaviour. At the centre of a proposed new framework is a 'behaviour system' involving three essential conditions: capability, opportunity, and motivation (what we term the 'COM-B system'). This forms the hub of a 'behaviour change wheel' (BCW) around which are positioned the nine intervention functions aimed at addressing deficits in one or more of these conditions; around this are placed seven categories of policy that could enable those interventions to occur. The BCW was used reliably to characterise interventions within the English Department of Health's 2010 tobacco control strategy and the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence's guidance on reducing obesity. Conclusions Interventions and policies to change behaviour can be usefully characterised by means of a BCW comprising: a 'behaviour system' at the hub, encircled by intervention functions and then by policy categories. Research is needed to establish how far the BCW can lead to more efficient design of effective interventions.
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            The use of triangulation in qualitative research.

            Triangulation refers to the use of multiple methods or data sources in qualitative research to develop a comprehensive understanding of phenomena (Patton, 1999). Triangulation also has been viewed as a qualitative research strategy to test validity through the convergence of information from different sources. Denzin (1978) and Patton (1999) identified four types of triangulation: (a) method triangulation, (b) investigator triangulation, (c) theory triangulation, and (d) data source triangulation. The current article will present the four types of triangulation followed by a discussion of the use of focus groups (FGs) and in-depth individual (IDI) interviews as an example of data source triangulation in qualitative inquiry.
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              What can “thematic analysis” offer health and wellbeing researchers?

              The field of health and wellbeing scholarship has a strong tradition of qualitative research—and rightly so. Qualitative research offers rich and compelling insights into the real worlds, experiences, and perspectives of patients and health care professionals in ways that are completely different to, but also sometimes complimentary to, the knowledge we can obtain through quantitative methods. There is a strong tradition of the use of grounded theory within the field—right from its very origins studying dying in hospital (Glaser & Strauss, 1965)—and this covers the epistemological spectrum from more positivist forms (Glaser, 1992, 1978) through to the constructivist approaches developed by Charmaz (2006) in, for instance, her compelling study of the loss of self in chronic illness (Charmaz, 1983). Similarly, narrative approaches (Riessman, 2007) have been used to provide rich and detailed accounts of the social formations shaping subjective experiences of health and well-being (e.g., Riessman, 2000). Phenomenological and hermeneutic approaches, including the more recently developed interpretative phenomenological analysis (Smith, Flowers, & Larkin, 2009), are similarly regularly used in health and wellbeing research, and they suit it well, oriented as they are to the experiential and interpretative realities of the participants themselves (e.g., Smith & Osborn, 2007). Thematic analysis (TA) has a less coherent developmental history. It appeared as a “method” in the 1970s but was often variably and inconsistently used. Good specification and guidelines were laid out by Boyatzis (1998) in a key text focused around “coding and theme development” that moved away from the embrace of grounded theory. But “thematic analysis” as a named, claimed, and widely used approach really “took off” within the social and health sciences following the publication of our paper Using thematic analysis in psychology in 2006 (Braun & Clarke, 2006; see also Braun & Clarke, 2012, 2013; Braun, Clarke, & Rance, 2014; Braun, Clarke, & Terry, 2014; Clarke & Braun, 2014a, 2014b). The “in psychology” part of the title has been widely disregarded, and the paper is used extensively across a multitude of disciplines, many of which often include a health focus. As tends to be the case when analytic approaches “mature,” different variations of TA have appeared: ours offer a theoretically flexible approach; others (e.g., Boyatzis, 1998; Guest, MacQueen, & Namey, 2012; Joffe, 2011) locate TA implicitly or explicitly within more realist/post-positivist paradigms. They do so through, for instance, advocating the development of coding frames, which facilitate the generation of measures like inter-rater reliability, a concept we find problematic in relation to qualitative research (see Braun & Clarke, 2013). Part of this difference results from the broad framework within which qualitative research is conducted: a “Big Q” qualitative framework, or a “small q” more traditional, positivist/quantitative framework (see Kidder & Fine, 1987). Qualitative health and wellbeing researchers will be researching across these research traditions—making TA a method well-suited to the varying needs and requirements of a wide variety of research projects. Despite the widespread uptake of TA as a formalised method within the qualitative analysis canon, and within health and wellbeing research, we often get emails from researchers saying they have been queried about the validity of TA as a method, or as a method suitable for their particular research project. For instance, we get emails from doctoral students or potential doctoral students, who have been told that “TA isn't sophisticated enough for a doctoral project” or emails from researchers who have been told that TA is only a descriptive or positivist method that requires no interpretative analysis. We get emails from people asking how to respond to reviewer queries on articles submitted for publication, where the validity of TA has been raised. We get so many emails, that we've created a website with answers to many of the questions we get: www.psych.auckland.ac.nz/thematicanalysis. The queries or critiques often reveal a lack of understanding about the potential of TA, and also about the variability and flexibility of the method. They often seem to assume a realist, descriptive method, and a method that lacks nuance, subtlety, or interpretative depth. This is incorrect. TA can be used in a realist or descriptive way, but it is not limited to that. The version of TA we've developed provides a robust, systematic framework for coding qualitative data, and for then using that coding to identify patterns across the dataset in relation to the research question. The questions of what level patterns are sought at, and what interpretations are made of those patterns, are left to the researcher. This is because the techniques are separate from the theoretical orientation of the research. TA can be done poorly, or it can be done within theoretical frameworks you might disagree with, but those are not reasons to reject the whole approach outright. TA offers a really useful qualitative approach for those doing more applied research, which some health research is, or when doing research that steps outside of academia, such as into the policy or practice arenas. TA offers a toolkit for researchers who want to do robust and even sophisticated analyses of qualitative data, but yet focus and present them in a way which is readily accessible to those who aren't part of academic communities. And, as a comparatively easy to learn qualitative analytic approach, without deep theoretical commitments, it works well for research teams where some are more and some are less qualitatively experienced. Ultimately, choice of analytic approach will depend on a cluster of factors, including what topic the research explores, what the research question is, who conducts the research, what their research experience is, who makes up the intended audience(s) of the research, the theoretical location(s) of the research, the research context, and many others. Some of these are somewhat fluid, some are more fixed. Ultimately, we advocate for an approach to qualitative research which is deliberative, reflective, and thorough. TA provides a tool that can serve these purposes well, but it doesn't serve every purpose. It can be used widely for health and wellbeing research, but it also needs to be used wisely. Virginia Braun School of Psychology, The University of AucklandPrivate Bag 92019, Auckland Mail Centre 1142Auckland, New ZealandEmail: v.braun@auckland.ac.nz Victoria Clarke Department of Health and Social Sciences, University of the West of EnglandBristol BS16 1QY, UK
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                sara.owczarczak-garstecka@dogstrust.org.uk
                katrina.holland@dogstrust.org.uk
                Journal
                Vet Rec
                Vet Rec
                10.1002/(ISSN)2042-7670
                VETR
                The Veterinary Record
                John Wiley and Sons Inc. (Hoboken )
                0042-4900
                2042-7670
                05 May 2022
                05 May 2022
                : e1681
                Affiliations
                [ 1 ] Dogs Trust London UK
                Author notes
                [*] [* ] Correspondence

                Sara C. Owczarczak‐Garstecka and Katrina E. Holland, Dogs Trust, London EC1 V 7RQ, UK.

                Email: sara.owczarczak-garstecka@ 123456dogstrust.org.uk and katrina.holland@ 123456dogstrust.org.uk

                Article
                VETR1681
                10.1002/vetr.1681
                9348021
                35514067
                8152ed76-adc8-4908-b445-353fc90992db
                © 2022 The Authors. Veterinary Record published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Veterinary Association.

                This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non‐commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

                History
                : 25 January 2022
                : 10 September 2021
                : 29 March 2022
                Page count
                Figures: 1, Tables: 4, Pages: 12, Words: 8154
                Categories
                Original Research
                Original Research
                Custom metadata
                2.0
                corrected-proof
                Converter:WILEY_ML3GV2_TO_JATSPMC version:6.1.7 mode:remove_FC converted:03.08.2022

                Veterinary medicine
                canine,covid‐19,dog,veterinary,veterinary healthcare
                Veterinary medicine
                canine, covid‐19, dog, veterinary, veterinary healthcare

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