No More Government-imposed Societal-level COVID-19 Control Measures but Still Significant Self-experienced Burden for Severely Immunocompromised Individuals - A Cross-sectional Survey in the Netherlands

Objectives: In March 2023, all societal-level COVID-19 control measures were lifted by the Dutch government. This study was performed to understand the self-experienced burden of this new phase of COVID-19 on the perspectives and behaviors of severely immunocompromised individuals.

Methods: This is an observational, descriptive, cross-sectional study in The Netherlands. An online survey was completed by severely immunocompromised individuals, to capture their general well-being (score from 1 = worst to 10 = best), mental and physical health, and daily and social activities during survey conduct and retrospectively for before onset of COVID-19. The survey was open for completion from May 24th until August 7nd, 2023.

Results: Of the 236 respondents, 96.6 % had been vaccinated against COVID-19 and 24.6 % were shielding to avoid COVID-19 during survey conduct. The general well-being score for all respondents was 7.5 (±1.2 SD) before onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and 6.9 (±1.6 SD) during survey conduct (P<0.001). For the shielding group (n = 58), these scores were 7.6 (±1.0 SD) and 5.7 (±1.6 SD), respectively (P<0.001). Generally, for all questions about mental and physical health and daily and social activities, there was a trend towards more negative answers during survey conduct, compared with before onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which was more pronounced for the shielding group.

Conclusions: Despite absence of government-imposed societal measures, COVID-19 avoidance still had a self-experienced burden on perspectives and behaviors of immunocompromised individuals in The Netherlands, with a significantly lower general well-being during survey conduct, compared with before onset of COVID-19.