Coronavirus (COVID-19) residential rehabilitation - testing, vaccination and infection control: status report

2. Methodology

A survey on current COVID-19 practices was sent by email to all 20 residential rehab providers in Scotland. Residential rehab providers were identified as part of the working group's mapping exercise in December 2020^[4]. Since this time, additional rehab providers have been identified as detailed in the report on capacity in February 2021^[5], and this updated list has been used for the purposes of this research. Residential rehabilitation was defined, as per the mapping report, as facilities offering programmes which aim to support individuals to attain an alcohol or drug-free lifestyle and be re-integrated into society, and which provide intensive psychosocial support and a structured programme of daily activities which residents are required to attend over a fixed period of time. The survey questions were designed to be able to provide a snapshot, at the time of completion, of the steps residential rehab providers in Scotland have taken to reduce COVID-19 infection within their facilities. Questions were developed in consultation with the short-life working group on Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation COVID-19 Testing and Vaccination Pathways (SLWG). This group consists of key individuals who are close to the provision of these services and representatives from the National COVID-19 Testing Programme.

The survey comprised of 17 questions (see Appendix B), including questions on COVID-19 testing, vaccination levels and procedures adopted around intake, isolation and visitors. In addition, the survey also asked a number of open text questions for more detail on responses. Service providers were asked to email back their response within a four day window. Due to the short timescales surrounding this work, providers who had not completed the survey were contacted by a member of the analytical team to ensure they had opportunity to be included in this research. As such, the survey was supplemented by a number of phone interviews.

Data was collected between the 18^th and 28^th of May 2021.