Acceptability of community quarantine in contexts of communicable disease epidemics: perspectives of literate lay people living in Conakry, Guinea

Abstract

During the 2014–2016 Ebola epidemic in West Africa, some communities reacted hostilely to the implementation of quarantine measures. This study's aim was to examine the views of lay people in Guinea on the acceptability of community quarantine. From June to August 2016, 302 adults indicated the acceptability of quarantine in 36 scenarios varying as a function of four factors: the infectious disease's level of contagiousness, its level of lethality, the number of cases in the community and whether persons in quarantine are provided with support services. Five clusters were identified: (1) for 18% of the participants, quarantine is never acceptable; (2) 16% considered, in contrast, that quarantine is always acceptable; (3) for 14%, it depends on the disease's level of contagiousness and lethality; (4) 36% based their judgement not only on the levels of contagiousness and lethality, but also on whether those in quarantine are provided with support services; and (5) 16% had no opinion. Interventions to increase voluntary compliance with community quarantine in Guinea must not be ‘one size fits all’, but must be multifaceted and tailored in design and implementation to match the diversity of people's concerns and needs.

What does the COVID-19 pandemic mean for HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria control?

“…Furthermore, the current measures to control COVID-19 include quarantine of suspected cases, isolation of infected patients, contact tracing, and among other strategies [16,17]. These might not have good acceptability in some communities [18,19]. Therefore, many patients with clinical features similar to those of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection, which might be COVID-19, and/or any other disease with similar symptomatology, might be hesitant to voluntarily seek testing and treatment in a formal health facility.…”

Attitudes and opinions on quarantine and support for a contact-tracing application in France during the COVID-19 outbreak

“…Most studies on individual compliance with quarantine measures in epidemic situations were conducted after the outbreaks of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 H5N1, 8 H1N1, 9 , 10 Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) 11 or Ebola disease. 12 , 13 A recent review showed that quarantine adherence is mainly correlated with knowledge about the disease, social norms related to quarantine, perceived benefits of quarantine and perceived risk of the disease. 14 However, while providing useful information, results of previous studies are difficult to transpose to the French COVID-19 general quarantine.…”

The role of risk communication in public health interventions. An analysis of risk communication for a community quarantine in Germany to curb the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic

“…Community quarantine differs from individual quarantine because it does not represent a linear logic between illness and intervention but establishes the link between an assumed exposure with a likelihood of infection and the intervention for an entire group [17,18]. Therefore, more and different communication is required [19]. The aim of our study was to identify conditions and influencing factors that facilitate risk communication governance, flow of information, communication and coordination.…”