Conducting research during the COVID-19 pandemic: the Op LASER study. / Mener des recherches au cours de la pandémie de COVID-19 : l'étude sur l'Opération LASER.
Health Promot Chronic Dis Prev Can
; 42(3): 100-103, 2022 Mar.
Article
in English, French
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1737528
ABSTRACT
The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) deployed 2595 regular and reserve force personnel on Operation (Op) LASER, the CAF's mission to provide support to civilian staff at longterm care facilities in Ontario and in the Centres d'hébergement de soins de longue durée in Quebec. An online longitudinal survey and in-depth virtual discussions were conducted by a multidisciplinary team of researchers with complementary expertise. This paper highlights the challenges encountered in conducting this research and their impact on the design and implementation of the study, and provides lessons learned that may be useful to researchers responding to similar public health crises in the future.
There are a number of challenges involved in conducting longitudinal research in an applied military setting during a global public health crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic. These challenges include but are not limited to a sudden transition to a distributed remote work environment, tight timelines, the need to obtain approvals from different agencies and departments, having to prioritize multiple study objectives, and survey fatigue. To overcome these challenges in future public health crises, it is important to (1) develop and maintain collaborative networks across government, academia and industry; (2) develop a standard set of pre-deployment demographic and health indicators to establish a baseline; and (3) use mixed methods approaches for a richer understanding of mental health trajectories following stressful events.
Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
COVID-19
Type of study:
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
/
Qualitative research
Limits:
Humans
Country/Region as subject:
North America
Language:
English
/
French
Journal:
Health Promot Chronic Dis Prev Can
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Hpcdp.42.3.03
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