Compliance with COVID-19 rules on intimate physical contact between households

Abstract

Despite concerns about COVID-19 ‘lockdown fatigue’ affecting compliance, most people adhered to the rules on intimate physical contact (ie, sex) between households. Four months after the first lockdown started, ~10% of survey participants in the Natsal-COVID wave 1 study reported sex outside the household in the 4 weeks prior to interview (quasi-representative web panel of 6654 British residents aged 18–59 years; July–August 2020). Those in steady relationships but not living with their partner (7.6% of sample) were most likely to report sex outside the household (56.8% of this group). Qualitative interviews identified careful consideration of risks and benefits, suggesting decisions were not taken lightly. One year later—when indoor mixing was again largely prohibited—we found a small increase in reporting sex outside the household (12.2% (95% CI 11.3% to 13.1%) compared with 9.9% (9.1% to 10.6%)), but associations by age and other characteristics remained stable (Natsal-COVID wave 2; 6658 residents aged 18–59 years; March–April 20214)

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Identifiers

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1136/sextrans-2023-055948

Repository URI

https://eprints.gla.ac.uk/315102/