This assessment is prescribed to advance literature searching, critical analysis, research question development, research planning skills, and reflexivity as a researcher. This assessment involves...

Topic: Psychological effects of Covid-19 on the mental health of family members of healthcare workers
Research proposal
Introduction
COVID-19 has been recently declared a pandemic by WHO, affecting several countries and continents simultaneously. But, infection rate and viral load is ot distributed equally in all the areas. Risk factors include age, male sex and preexisting health conditions such as cardiovascular disease, hypertension and diabetes. There has been increasing evidence that people from specific ethnicities such as BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) groups have high risk of being adversely affected by COVID-19. BAME groups show mental health inequalities, which have been increased by pandemic in several ways, reasons being face-to-face support from mental health service practitioners made difficult due to pandemic, limited non-essential travel and availability of alternate routes of care and support. Incidences of mental health issues such as post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression have been increased since COVID19.
Recently, it has been observed that COVID19 disproportionately affects certain ethnicities more than others, who tend to have adverse health outcomes. For example, in Norway and Finland, much higher cases have been reported in Somali populations. There are also few reports from UK where higher COVID19 cases are observed in BAME group, with a high likelihood of infection and deaths.
Exact reason for this is not clear. Possible reasons include genetics, co-morbidities such as diabetes and hypertension. These approaches for explaining the impact of COVID-19 on BAME population seems too narrow, partial and ineffective. Behavioural approaches can be followed to explain the role of the Individual and household factors in increasing COVID-19 risk among these groups (Bhatia M, 2020).
Methodology
Study subjects
Four participants were selected who are immediate family members of healthcare workers at Royal Melbourne Hospital, Victoria. Data was collected from 20/10/2020 to 27/10/2020. Participants were from different ethnic backgrounds (LOR, FARS, TURK, and KURD). The inclusion criteria were (1) Family members (spouse/son/daughter) of healthcare workers (doctors and nurses) who work in Covid-19 ward 2) Age – 14 to 50. The exclusion criteria were vulnerable groups such as kids and people with disability.
Interview outline
Phenomenological approach to qualitative psychology was considered and following questions were posed from the participants
1. What is your opinion on the emerging Covid-19 in your country?
2. Do you feeling anxious or fearful about spread of Covod-19 in your city?
3. Are you aware about the precautions which are in process to minimize the spread of Covid-19? What is your opinion on that?
4. Do you feel concerned about your family members who work in high-risk areas (such as hospitals, lab testing etc) with the increasing risk and emergence of Covid-19?
5. What are your coping strategies?
6. Has Covid-19 changed your life and daily routine?
7. How to cope with changes in your life and work?
Qualitative research involves different techniques such as interviews, direct observation and document analysis and can be carried out by different methods such as phenomenology, ethnography, case studies, and grounded theory. As compared to quantitative research where large sample size is required, qualitative research focuses on in-depth analysis with few cases, where one can deduce ideographic descriptions, personal beliefs and their meanings (Englander E., 2016).
Summary
COVID19 has posed a serious affect on the mental of people among all age groups. Interviews were conducted for four participants selected for this study (Appendix I). 3 out of 4 participants revealed that they experience anxiety, fear or worry of some kind due to ongoing COVID19 pandemic and increasing no. of cases. Here, we applied phenomenological approach of qualitative psychology while selection and formulation of interview questions. This approach is well suited for the chosen research question and for the qualitative analysis to be done for the same, as it does not require higher no. of participants or cased as required in a case study. The approach was also qualitative as compared to quantitative, where participants respond to the questions on a scale of numeric values (eg; on a scale of 1-10). Quantitative approach relies of diagnosis of mental illness such as GAD or depression rather than a phenomenological study. Other approaches such as grounded theory seem inapplicable for a group of 4 participants, as it requires data analyses and coding and more suited to a large subset of participants.
Phenomenology is a term derived from philosophy, which relies on interviewing participants bases on their real life experiences. This is a qualitative method which allows co-relation between the participant and their opinions and perceptions about a subject based on their real life experience (Englander E, 2016). Here, one of the participants (Participant 1) regained her normal self and recovered from a COVID19 infection twice. This describes and replicates an exact scenario of health-risks associated with those who work within high-risk groups such as doctors and nurse and risk of infecting their families associated with them. Although, none of the participant belong to a different ethnicity or cultural background,...