2.4. Analysis

From a longitudinal perspective, to understand the participants’ experiences of recovery across time, including essential turning points [15], the following themes were explored: experiences of pain, use of opioids, post-discharge follow-up, mental health, and quality of life. As the interviews were conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic and its influence on the participants’ everyday lives became a natural part of the dialog and probing questions. For example, when a participant was on sick leave with trauma-related pain and mental health problems and was concurrently responsible for home-schooling children, the pandemic and its impact became an integrated part of the experiences after trauma.

The interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim before they were processed and coded in NVIVO [16]. For this paper, all data from the original study’s transcript that contained the terms “COVID-19”, “Corona”, and “Pandemic” were extracted using a text search query [17], which lists all sources containing specific words, and thematically analyzed [18] by J.F. and I.A.H., separately. After the initial analysis, J.F. and I.A.H. met regularly to discuss and establish consensus regarding emerging themes. All authors contributed, by means of an interdisciplinary approach [9], to the final stage of analysis, resulting in three themes: Feeling deprioritized by the healthcare system, an experience of reduced capacity to handle stressful tasks, and alcohol consumption to relieve additional mental distress during the pandemic. Each participant is given a pseudonym.