Occupational disruptions during lockdown, by generation: A European descriptive cross-sectional survey

The periods of lockdown during 2020 led to changes in daily occupations. As participation relies on dynamic interactions between the person, his/her occupations and his/her environment, we wondered whether people from different generations shared the same perception of occupational disruptions during the lockdown.

We performed an online survey based on the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure (COPM) of adults in 27 European Union countries, the United Kingdom and Switzerland. Three groups were compared: young adults (YAs, aged 18-39), middle-aged adults (MAs, aged 40-59) and older adults (OAs, aged 60 and over).

2865 participants (YAs: 47%; MAs: 33%; OAs: 20%) reported a total of 6549 disrupted occupations. The most frequently disrupted domain was leisure (83%), followed by productivity (16%) and self-care (2%); there were no significant intergroup differences (p = 0.18). In a multivariate analysis, socializing disruptions were more likely to be associated with younger age (adjusted odds ratio (OR) [95% confidence interval (CI)] = 0.62 [0.50-0.76] for YAs versus MAs and 0.46 [0.30-0.71] for YAs versus OAs.

With the exception of socializing, the main disrupted occupations were similar from one generation to another. Our findings might enable the more accurate assessment of the risk of occupational disruption in a restrictive environment.