Distance Aware Scheme Survey – March 2022

Limitations of the research

It is important to note that these results are not statistically representative of the wider Highest Risk cohort but do give a good indication of the experiences of those who have engaged with the Distance Aware Scheme.

There are a number of other limitations with this survey:

• Only 2 out of 4 respondents who were attending school, college or university in person had used a Distance Aware badge or lanyard in their place of education. Very little insight can be gleaned from such low numbers.
• Because we recruited participants who were already signed up to the Covid Highest Risk research participant list, they are likely to be very engaged in services offered by the division in comparison to the wider group.
• Bias related to self-selecting sampling approach (e.g., non-response bias in survey method) and because this survey was only available to complete online.

Eligibility to participate

At the start of the survey, we asked participants to tell us whether they had received a letter from Scotland's Chief Medical Officer advising them that they are at Highest Risk from COVID-19 or were asked to Shield early in the pandemic. Only 0.3% of respondents answered no and were not permitted to complete the survey.

97% of respondents said that they were identified as being at highest risk while 4% said that they were caring for an adult (over 16) who had been identified as highest risk.^[1]