The social media response to twice-weekly mass asymptomatic testing in England

Amelia Dennis*, Charlotte Robin, Holly Carter

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

6 Citations (Scopus)
10 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Background: From 9th April 2021, everyone in England has been encouraged to take two COVID-19 tests per week. This is the first time that national mass asymptomatic testing has been introduced in the UK and the effectiveness of the policy depends on uptake with testing and willingness to self-isolate following a positive test result. This paper examines attitudes towards twice-weekly testing, as well as barriers and facilitators to engaging in testing. 

Methods: Between 5th April and 28th May 2021 we searched Twitter, Facebook, and online news articles with publicly available comment sections to identify comments relating to twice-weekly testing. We identified 5783 comments which were then analysed using a framework analysis. 

Results: We identified nine main themes. Five themes related to barriers to engaging in testing: low perceived risk from COVID-19; mistrust in the government; concern about taking a test; perceived ineffectiveness of twice-weekly testing policy; and perceived negative impact of twice-weekly testing policy. Four themes related to facilitators to engaging in testing: wanting to protect others; positive perceptions of tests; a desire to return to normal; and perceived efficacy for reducing asymptomatic transmission. 

Conclusions: Overall, the comments identified indicated predominately negative attitudes towards the twice weekly testing policy. Several recommendations can be made to improve engagement with twice weekly testing, including: 1) communicate openly and honestly about the purpose of testing; 2) provide information about the accuracy of tests; 3) provide financial support for those required to self-isolate, and; 4) emphasise accessibility of testing.

Original languageEnglish
Article number182
JournalBMC Public Health
Volume22
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 27 Jan 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

Open Access: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2022.

Citation: Dennis, A., Robin, C. & Carter, H. The social media response to twice-weekly mass asymptomatic testing in England. BMC Public Health 22, 182 (2022).

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-12605-2

Keywords

  • Asymptomatic testing
  • COVID-19
  • Public health

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