Public perceptions of psychiatric, justice-involved, and elderly populations during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has had a significant global impact, with all countries facing the challenge of mitigating its spread. An unprecedented shortage of medical resources has raised concerns regarding allocation and prioritization of supplies, which may exacerbate social discrepancies for already vulnerable populations. As public opinion can impact healthcare policies, we aimed to characterize perceptions of psychiatric, forensic psychiatry, correctional, and elderly populations regarding COVID-19-related issues. This web-based study recruited participants (n = 583) from the general population in North America. The survey included perceptions of the pandemic, hypothetical scenarios on resource prioritization, and Likert scale questions. The majority of participants were cisgender female (72.7%), aged 31–74 years (80.0%), married (48.0%), retired (52.7%), resided in Canada (73.9%), had a college/university degree (50.9%) and had never worked in healthcare (66.21%). Most respondents reported not having a criminal history (95.88%), or a psychiatric disorder (78.73%). Perceptions of vulnerable populations were significantly different for resource allocation and prioritization (e.g., ventilator and vaccine resources, all p < 0.001). Healthcare workers and the elderly were commonly ranked the highest priority for resources, while forensic psychiatry and correctional populations were given the lowest priority. A high rate of disagreement was found for the more stigmatizing questions in the survey (all p < 0.0001). Our results suggest that perception from members of the general public in North America is aligned with current practices for resource allocation. However, individuals that already face social and health disparities may face additional opposition in decision-making for COVID-19 resources.

Is compassion the flip side of punitiveness? Incorporating COVID-19 crisis in experimental vignettes to examine support for visitation and vaccination in prison

“…Across both vignettes, respondents expressed a preference for prioritizing nonprisoners in vaccination priorities and taxes for PPE-confirming prior work on "least eligibility" for generous services to individuals leaving prison (Garland et al, 2013). This finding was also consistent with prior research examining if the public wants to prioritize COVID-19 responses to individuals outside of prison (Denney & Garibaldo Valdez, 2021; see also Géa et al, 2022). In a public health crisis, such attitudes may impact mortality-and at the very least inflict additional harm on individuals who are incarcerated.…”

“…4 2 A fifth public opinion survey fielded in the second half of 2020 focused on healthcare policy and resource prioritization during COVID-19 was tangentially related as it included correctional populations as one of the priority groups examined. Correctional populations were in the bottom half (vaccine, ventilator priorities) or very lowest priority (limited healthcare resource allocation) compared to other groups considered (healthcare workers, elderly, children, those with psychiatric disorders, physically healthy, forensic psychiatry patients) (Géa et al, 2022). 3 As of June 1, 2021, just over half of the US population had received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine according to data compiled by https:// ourwo rldin data.…”

“…Similarly, a healthcare policy study found correctional populations to be low(est) priority compared to other groups (e.g., healthcare workers, elderly) for many health resources(Géa et al, 2022).…”

Decision Conflicts in Clinical Care during COVID-19: A Multi-Perspective Inquiry

“…The loss of applicable clinical evidence, decisional uncertainty and moral distress have been assumed to interfere with process management in healthcare [ 1 ], trust in healthcare structures [ 2 ] and patient-related shared decision making (SDM) [ 3 ]. Examples include different clinical settings, such as primary care [ 4 ], cardiology [ 5 ], psychiatry [ 6 ] and oncology [ 1 ].…”

Analysis of personal psychological motivation and social psychological motivation of Retaliatory Justice under moral public opinion: Chinese cases

“…The rapid development of public opinion events and the wide range of participants fully reflect the public's social perception and concern for judicial justice and construct the overall impression of judicial justice about the society. The Perception of Judicial Justice is based on the individual's outlook on life and values, influenced by the concepts of others, and fueled by social emotions, and finally produces the Perception of Judicial Justice (Géa et al, 2022;Indradevi, 2022). The Perception of Judicial Justice is not simply right and wrong, good and evil, but a subjective perception strengthens the social connection among evil deeds, evil people, evil consequences, and punishment (Trood et al, 2021).…”