German-speaking Switzerland Research Articles

Survey about target temperature and thermal management in intensive care for severe thermal trauma in burn centres of Germany, Austria and Switzerland

Burn trauma induces hypermetabolism and alters thermoregulation resulting in elevated body temperature. Because patients with burns are prone to heat loss and hypothermia, maintaining physiologic body temperature is important. However, optimal target temperature is widely unknown because thermoregulation of burn trauma has mainly been studied in the last century when treatment concepts differed from current one. The aim of this study was to investigate current thermal management of burn treatment and to investigate the discrepancies between classical concepts of thermoregulation in burn trauma and current practice of temperature management.A paper-based survey was conducted in burn centres in Germany, Austria and German-speaking Switzerland. Participants were asked for expected temperatures, temperature goals and thermal management of severely burned patients. Results were evaluated for adults and children.37 of 38 approached burn centres participated in this survey. 59% expected that adults with burn trauma would develop hyperthermia (>37.5°C) but only 27% expected hyperthermia in children (>38°C). The average target body temperature was 37.1°C for adults and 36.9°C for children. Adults below 35.7°C and children below 36.0°C were supposed to be hypothermic. Temperatures above 38.8°C in adults and 38.7°C in children raised suspicion for sepsis. Antipyretic treatment was assumed to be justified at temperatures above 39.1°C in adults and 38.5°C in children. Although the most common warmth protective method was to increase ambient temperature, 89% of all participants felt their wellbeing was affected by an increased ambient temperature and 68% were concerned about temperature related negative effects. Although 57% of the responding centres had established a standard operating procedure for thermal management, only 41% considered the available literature to be very relevant in daily practice and 89% criticized the lack of guidelines.Limit- and target-temperatures in European burn centres are heterogeneous. Classic concepts of thermal management in burn care are not generally adopted. A majority of the centers expresses the need for specific guidelines. The basis for this should be multicentre clinical trials on temperature management in burn trauma.

Assessing the practice of total neoadjuvant therapy for rectal cancer: an online survey among radiation oncology departments in Germany and German-speaking regions of Austria and Switzerland.

Total neoadjuvant therapy (TNT) of rectal cancer improves rates of pathological complete remission and progression-free survival. With improved clinical response rates, interest grew in a non-operative approach/watch and wait (WaW) for this disease. In 2020, the working groups of ACO/AIO/ARO published a consensus statement on the use of TNT, including a non-operative approach. However, the best combination scheme remains unclear. Despite the increasing use of TNT, there is a lack of comprehensive data on its current implementation and practices. To address this knowledge gap, a multicenter survey was conducted to capture the use of TNT protocols in German-speaking radiotherapy departments. At the beginning of 2023, a GDPR-compliant online survey was conducted in Germany, Austria, and German-speaking Switzerland. The questionnaire comprised 43 questions covering various aspects of TNT, including chemotherapy and WaW concepts. Most respondents (98.4%) confirmed awareness of the consensus on TNT for rectal cancer. Institutions treated an average of 30.22 rectal cancer patients annually. Most respondents (76.2%) reported treating over 80% of patients neoadjuvantly. Regarding TNT, 33.3% treated 21-50% with such a protocol. No significant association was found between the institution type and TNT application. In 62/63 cases, tumor board discussion was standard before offering TNT. VMAT was the predominant technique (82.5%). For rectal cancer dosing, the 50/50.4Gy scheme was most common, followed by 45Gy with a boost and the 5 × 5Gy scheme. Dosing schemes for TNT varied slightly, with more participants reporting the use of 5 × 5Gy compared to radiation therapy for rectal cancer in general. CBCT was the primary IGRT method (88.9%). Larger hospitals typically administered chemotherapy themselves, while private practices collaborated with medical oncologists (p < 0.0001). The most common concurrent chemotherapy drugs were 5-fluorouracil/capecitabine (64.4%) and oxaliplatin (37.3%). A WaW strategy was reported to be institutional implemented by 63.8%. The timing of offering WaW was split, with 50% offering it after radiochemotherapy and 47% during the informed consent talk. For planned WaW, 62% prefer normofractionated TNT. TNT appears to be widely implemented in the German-speaking radio-oncological community, regardless of the type of institution. Image-guided therapy, multidisciplinary team decisions, and internal guidelines play an important role. TNT seems to have already altered treatment protocols for rectal cancer toward an organ-preserving approach in selected cases. In these WaW cases, normofractionation appears to be preferred over hypofractionation.

Undoing the knots. A gender-historical perspective on debates about kindergarten in German-speaking Switzerland (1950–1980)

ABSTRACT This article discusses how a gender-historical perspective may still be productive in today’s historiography of education. In doing so, it relies on theoretical approaches developed in feminist and gender-historical debates and in debates about the ontological turn in historiography. Categories are thus understood as “world-giving” and changing entities which cannot just be analysed in their varying historical contexts but must be examined and historicised themselves in order to capture their fuzziness and fluidity. Against this theoretical background and on the basis of professional journals of kindergarten teachers and published speeches of seminar teachers, this article analyses debates about kindergarten in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, focusing on the years 1950–1980. In these debates, it examines what “productive work” (Scott) the categories “child” and “mother” did with regard to social and gender order and how they emerged from various knowledges becoming entangled in specific places and times. The allegedly clear “inside-outside boundaries” and “dichotomies” (Haraway) between the categories are questioned by turning to conflicts, to the unresolved, to the paradoxical. Furthermore, the paper reflects on the tasks assigned to kindergarten and the arguments which were put forward to legitimise it within the category-related “meshwork” (Ingold) of knowledges and power. Finally, it is shown how powerfully the categories “child” and “mother” acted in the debates about kindergarten in German-speaking Switzerland when stabilising and perpetuating a strongly gendered social order.

Nurses' health during the COVID-19 pandemic in Switzerland: A longitudinal study with mixed methods design

Nurses' health during the COVID-19 pandemic in Switzerland: A longitudinal study with mixed methods design Abstract: Background: The COVID19 pandemic has had a significant impact on healthcare systems worldwide. Nurses have played a crucial role in responding to the crisis, often at the expense of their own health and wellbeing. Aim: The aim of the study was to investigate the physical and mental health status as well as the resources of certified nurses during the pandemic, in German-speaking Switzerland. Methods: In a longitudinal study with a mixed methods design, data were collected among nurses from acute hospitals between 2021 and 2022 using a questionnaire survey and focus group interviews. The data were analysed using multiple regression analysis, knowledge mapping and the Neuman system model. Results: The results show improvements in health, quality of life and job satisfaction, and a decrease in stress; whereby influencing extrapersonal factors are, among others, reorganisations within hospitals with the active involvement of nurses. On the interpersonal level, support from managers or colleagues proved helpful. At the intrapersonal level, the recognition of the nurses' competencies was deemed particularly important, to help them to remain healthy during the pandemic. Conclusions: Increased recognition, participation, training and career opportunities as well as flexible working models need to be implemented in the long term to ensure a sustainable improvement of the health and well-being of nurses.

The TimeUse+ data set: 4 weeks of time use and expenditure data based on GPS tracks

AbstractThis data paper introduces the TimeUse+ data set and outlines the comprehensive survey methodologies employed in its collection. The TimeUse+ study comprised two online questionnaires and a smartphone-based diary, recording travel, time use, and expenditure data. Participants were instructed to utilize the TimeUse+ application over a 4-week period. The app passively tracked participants’ movements via GPS and enabled them to annotate their trips and time spent at fixed locations with relevant time use and expenditure information. We begin by providing an overview of extant research on smartphone-based activity-travel diaries and the survey methodological research that informed the TimeUse+ app’s design. We then delineate the study design and components of TimeUse+, highlighting insights derived from prior focus groups and pretests. The data analyzed in this study were collected during the main study wave of TimeUse+, conducted in German-speaking Switzerland from July 2022 to February 2023. Approximately 63,000 individuals were invited to participate, of which approximately 10% initially indicated interest. Despite the study’s extensive and burdensome nature, we observed a net response rate of 2.1%. We present findings related to travel behavior, time use patterns, and expenditure habits, and discuss the challenges faced and lessons learned during each stage of development and execution of the TimeUse+ study. These extensive longitudinal data, which include validated information on travel mode and purpose, as well as detailed data on duration, social partners, and expenditures associated with activities performed at each destination, are being made available for further research.

The use of gender-fair language in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland: A contrastive, corpus-based study

Gender-fair language (GFL) is currently a widely debated topic in the German-speaking context, yet research on the subject is rather scarce with limited comparative data for the three largest German-speaking countries, Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. The present study seeks to address this research gap with a corpus-based analysis of the use of different forms of GFL over the last two decades in these three countries. Given that the language used by journalists reaches a vast target audience, the corpus for this study consists of some of the most widely circulated and politically diverse daily newspapers in the three countries. The results of the study not only show differences in the frequency of GFL in the three countries, with Austria using GFL most frequently, but also indicate a diverging usage trend from 2021 onwards and variations in the strategies of GFL used. Furthermore, the political orientation of the selected newspapers is not predictive of the frequency of GFL and the strategies used.

A new approach to cultural scripts of trauma sequelae assessment: The sample case of Switzerland.

The novel concept of cultural scripts of trauma sequelae captures culture-specific expressions of posttraumatic distress (e.g., cognitive, emotional, interpersonal, psychosomatic changes) and their temporal associations. Cultural scripts of trauma sequelae complement pan-cultural (etic) diagnoses, such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and Complex PTSD, as well as the cultural syndromes concept. This study aimed to develop the cultural scripts of trauma inventory (CSTI) for German-speaking Switzerland and to explore temporal associations of script elements. Five semi-structured focus groups were conducted with psychotraumatologists (n = 8) and Swiss trauma survivors (n = 7). The interview schedule included open questions about different domains of potential posttraumatic changes (emotions, cognitions, worldviews, interpersonal relationships, body-related experiences, behavior, and growth). Data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. The Swiss CSTI includes 57 emic elements that represent salient trauma sequelae (30 conformed with a theoretically derived item pool, 27 were newly phrased). Temporal script associations were visualized in a network, whereby self-deprecation, the urge to function and overcompensate, and the urge to hide and endure suffering had the highest number of connections. While many posttraumatic changes identified in the present work seem to mirror pan-cultural phenomena represented in the Complex PTSD concept (e.g., self-deprecation), others (e.g., urge to function and perform, urge to hide and endure suffering) may be prominently related to Swiss culture with its value orientations. Knowledge about cultural scripts of trauma sequelae may provide a culture-specific framework that can help to understand individual experiences of distress and enable mental health practitioners to administer culturally sensitive interventions. Pending further validation, the Swiss CSTI bears the potential to advance culture-sensitive assessment of trauma sequelae.

SARS-CoV-2 immunity and reasons for non-vaccination among healthcare workers from eastern and northern Switzerland: results from a nested multicentre cross-sectional study.

We aimed to assess the extent of SARS-CoV-2 humoral immunity elicited by previous infections and/or vaccination among healthcare workers, and to identify reasons why healthcare workers decided against vaccination. This nested cross-sectional study included volunteer healthcare workers from 14 healthcare institutions in German-speaking Switzerland. In January 2021, SARS-CoV-2 vaccines were available for healthcare workers. In May and June 2022, participants answered electronic questionnaires regarding baseline characteristics including SARS-CoV-2 vaccination status (with one or more vaccine doses defined as vaccinated) and previous SARS-CoV-2 infections. Unvaccinated participants indicated their reasons for non-vaccination. Participants underwent testing for SARS-CoV-2 anti-spike (anti-S) and anti-nucleocapsid (anti-N) antibodies. Antibody prevalence was described across age groups. In addition, we performed multivariable logistic regression to identify baseline characteristics independently associated with non-vaccination and described reasons for non-vaccination. Among 22,438 eligible employees, 3,436 (15%) participated; the median age was 43.7 years (range 16-73), 2,794 (81.3%) were female, and 1,407 (47.7%) identified as nurses; 3,414 (99.4%) underwent serology testing, among whom 3,383 (99.0%) had detectable anti-S (3,357, 98.3%) antibodies, anti-N (2,396, 70.1%) antibodies, or both (2,370, 69.4%). A total of 296 (8.6%) healthcare workers were unvaccinated, whereas 3,140 (91.4%) were vaccinated. In multivariable analysis, age (adjusted OR [aOR] 1.02 per year, 95% CI 1.01-1.03), being a physician (aOR 3.22, 95% CI 1.75-5.92) or administrator (aOR 1.88, 95% CI 1.27-2.80), and having higher education (aOR 2.23, 95% CI 1.09-4.57) were positively associated with vaccine uptake, whereas working in non-acute care (aOR 0.58, 95% CI 0.34-0.97), active smoking (aOR 0.68, 95% CI 0.51-0.91), and taking prophylactic home remedies against SARS-CoV-2 (aOR 0.42, 95% CI 0.31-0.56) were negatively associated. Important reasons for non-vaccination were a belief that the vaccine might not have long-lasting immunity (267/291, 92.1%) and a preference for gaining naturally acquired instead of vaccine-induced immunity (241/289, 83.4%). Almost all healthcare workers in our cohort had specific antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 from natural infection and/or from vaccination. Young healthcare workers and those working in non-acute settings were less likely to be vaccinated, whereas physicians and administrative staff showed higher vaccination uptake. Presumed ineffectiveness of the vaccine is an important reason for non-vaccination.

How do the Swiss Spend their Time?

Time use statistics are widely documented in order to track societal trends. The most reliable and widely used collection method for time use data are diaries in which a person documents all activities participated in for a given period. This study uncovers daily time use patterns across the entire adult population of German-speaking Switzerland with such data. The findings are the first diary-based account of time use for the region and illuminate important differences between genders and based on parenthood status in terms of paid and unpaid work, as well as working from home.

Social classes, school performance, subjective expected utilities, and educational decisions

There have been several suggestions on how Rational Choice Theories (RCT) for educational decisions could be tested directly. In this empirical analysis, it is argued that these testing strategies have shortcomings, and therefore a different testing strategy is suggested. An innovative specification of a broad version of an RCT for educational decisions is applied, directly taking the utility-maximising behaviour of the actors into account. By using this improved testing strategy, it is demonstrated for young people residing in German-speaking Switzerland that rational decisions play an important role in educational decisions. They calculate the subjective expected benefit of every educational option at the end of compulsory school that, in their view, is relevant to the continuation of their school and vocational training. Panel data show that they ordinally rank the educational options considered according to their benefit and that they choose the option that promises the greatest benefit. For young people in different school branches, it can be seen that the purposive-rational evaluation of the educational options considered and the selection of the educational option with the highest subjectively expected utility are essential mechanisms of educational decision-making characterised by procedural rationality.

Registered nurses' experience of necessary performed and missed nursing care: a qualitative study

Registered nurses' experience of necessary performed and missed nursing care: a qualitative study Abstract: Background: Providing high quality care based on their caring attitude is essential for nurses. Missed Care can cause feelings of guilt and dissatisfaction among them. Studies on their experiential transition between fully performed and missed care are lacking. They may contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of influencing factors and the impact on nurses' experience. Aim: The aim was to explore how nurses at a centre hospital in German-speaking Switzerland describe performance of nursing interventions in terms of the different expressions between performed and missed care. Methods: Between September 2020 and March 2021 the first author conducted eleven qualitative guide-based individual interviews with registered nurses which were analysed using Mayring's qualitative content analysis and knowledge maps. Results: The analysis resulted in five main categories: Optimal care, satisfaction in mediocrity, a huge lack, patients' reactions and influencing factors. Nurses described, in addition to personal experience and expertise, different coping strategies to prevent missed care and maintain patients' and their own satisfaction. Conclusions: In addition to interventions that can prevent missed care, nurses' experience of performed care should be explored further. This can deepen the understanding of its relationship with professional caring attitudes as well as with patient-related and professional satisfaction.

Burnout and Disengagement at Work Among Health Professionals-Interrelations and Associations With Stress Indicators and Job Resources.

The aim of the study is to explore common risk and protective factors of burnout and disengagement at work among healthcare workers. Cross-sectional survey data of 1232 health professionals and employees of five public hospitals and rehabilitation clinics collected in 2015/16 in German-speaking Switzerland were used and analyzed. Different stress measures and job resources were studied as predictors of burnout and work engagement. Burnout was found to be largely explained by work stress (β = 0.22) and particularly by general stress (β = 0.54) whereas work engagement was only marginally determined by these stress indicators. Job autonomy or supervisor support on the other hand had no protective effect on burnout at all but a fairly strong predictive effect on work engagement (β = 0.27/0.23). Burnout turned out to be mainly stress-induced whereas work engagement emerged largely as a result of job autonomy and supervisor support.

Stand-up paddling: A case study on the effect and impact pathway of information and appeals to reduce ecological conflicts

Water bodies form important habitats for animals and plants. At the same time, they offer special recreational benefits, through nature experiences, their scenic quality or as a basis for sport activities. However, high visitor numbers and problematic behaviour can lead to disturbances in nature. To maintain the recreational benefits of such public spaces and to protect nature, campaigns are a useful means, in addition to spatial interventions and legal regulations. This study evaluates a campaign to reduce negative effects on nature due to the increasingly popular activity of stand-up paddling. A written pre-post survey of the treatment group at Lake Greifensee was completed by the stand-up paddlers on site on tablets or location-independently on their own device. The control survey took place at Lake Lauerzersee, but mainly via various disseminators and social media in German-speaking Switzerland, starting with the pre-survey and ending with the post-survey at Lake Greifensee. The total sample comprised 334 people. To evaluate the campaign, behavioural predictors - based on the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) (Ajzen, 1991) - and self-reported behaviour of stand-up paddlers with and without exposure to the campaign were compared. Exposure to the campaign influenced the predictor “perceived control” the most; the two variables “knowledge” and “self-assessed skills” increased significantly with exposure to the campaign. The poster, which was present on site throughout the campaign, was the communication tool most perceived by stand-up paddlers. The variables that best predicted self-reported behaviour were behavioural knowledge, relevance, and self-assessed ability. The results indicate that TPB-predictors tend to be positively influenced by campaign exposure, and they point to a relationship between TPB-predictors and behaviour. However, not all components of the TPB-predictors are statistically significantly improved by campaign exposure, nor do they all significantly influence self-reported behaviour. Nonetheless, the results show that persuasive work improves self-reported ecological behaviour and largely confirm the impact path for persuasion as it has been theoretically proposed. Management implications•A combination of information and behavioural recommendations reduce conflicts between stand-up paddlers and nature. To improve all TPB-predictors, additional efforts such as persuasion on an emotion-related basis are recommended.•Due to the low level of organization of the activity and because information is rarely obtained in advance, paddlers are best informed on site or in the beginning of their activity career (e.g., when buying/renting equipment).

Impact of a deprescribing tool on the use of sedative hypnotics among older patients: study protocol for a cluster randomised controlled trial in Swiss primary care (the HYPE trial)

IntroductionBenzodiazepines and other sedative hypnotics (BSH) are potentially inappropriate and harmful medications in older people due to their higher susceptibility for adverse drug events. BSH prescription rates are constantly high...

Between information campaign and controversy: a quantitative newspaper content analysis about COVID-19 vaccination in Switzerland and Austria.

Because media portrayal reflects and shapes public opinion and health policy, investigating news coverage of public health issues is highly relevant for public health research and practice. Addressing a topical issue, this study investigated how newspaper coverage framed COVID-19 vaccines in Austria and German-speaking Switzerland and how it developed over time. A quantitative newspaper content analysis of six newspapers from Austria and German-speaking Switzerland published between January 1 and 31, 2022 was conducted. Frames were identified for each country separately through hierarchical cluster analysis (Ward's method) based on frame elements. Four frames were identified in both countries: (1) Evaluating new vaccines, (2) Discussing mandates, (3) Promoting vaccination, (4) Mentioning vaccines. In Frames 1 (Switzerland 86.4%, Austria 93.3%) and 3 (Switzerland 92.7%, Austria 98.9%), most articles included vaccine-endorsing statements, with Swiss coverage including additional negative statements more often than Austrian coverage (43.2%/44.6% vs 4.0%/3.3%). Frame 2 was closely linked to vaccine skepticism only in Austria and contained more evaluative statements in Austrian newspapers (25.4% endorsing, 35.4% rejecting; in Switzerland 14.5%/18.1%). The Austrian tabloid Kronen Zeitung published most articles (497/1091, 45.6%). The commercialized and comparatively high share of tabloid news coverage in Austria may have contributed to oversimplified and polarizing COVID-19 vaccine debates in this context. Insufficiently balanced and adequate information may contribute to a loss of public trust in vaccination and may therefore affect vaccination uptake. Authorities and public health professionals should consider this effect when designing information campaigns.

Vowel and consonant quantity in two Swiss German dialects and their corresponding varieties of Standard German: effects of region, age, and tempo.

The diglossic situation in German-speaking Switzerland entails that both an Alemannic dialect and a Swiss standard variety of German are spoken. One phonological property of both Alemannic and Swiss Standard German (SSG) is contrastive quantity not only in vowels but also in consonants, namely lenis and fortis. This study aims to compare vowel and plosive closure durations as well as articulation rate (AR) between Alemannic and SSG in the varieties spoken in a rural area of the canton of Lucerne (LU) and an urban area of the canton of Zurich (ZH).In addition to the segment durations, an additional measure of vowel-to-vowel+consonant duration (V/(V+C)) ratios is calculated in order to account for possible compensation between vowel and closure durations. Stimuli consisted of words containing different vowel-consonant (VC) combinations. The main differences found are longer segment durations in Alemannic compared to SSG, three phonetic vowel categories in Alemannic that differ between LU and ZH, three stable V/(V+C) ratio categories, and three phonetic consonant categories lenis, fortis, and extrafortis in both Alemannic and SSG. Most importantly, younger ZH speakers produced overall shorter closure durations, calling into question a possible reduction of consonant categories due to a contact to German Standard German (GSG).

Children’s agency in interactions: how children use language(s) and contribute to the language ecology in Swiss bilingual German-English daycare centres

ABSTRACT Although Switzerland is a plurilingual country, most early education and care (ECEC) institutions are monolingual. Yet, new institutions have recently established English as a second language of instruction, addressing economically advantaged families. Despite the growing body of international research on language policy and practice in multilingual ECEC, only few have addressed such ‘privileged’ institutions, and the role children play in dealing with multiple languages. We investigate the language policies and practices in daycare centres with a bilingual language policy, and particularly the children’s agency in dealing with German, English, and other languages in interactions with each other, and with teachers. We draw on the concept of children’s agency and view children as actors who contribute to the construction of the social and cultural world in which they live together with adults. We ask how children use languages in daycare centres, how they contribute to the centres’ language practices, and how thereby different forms of agency manifest. We draw on data from a focused ethnography conducted in three daycare centres in German-speaking Switzerland. The results show that children’s multilingual agency is not only enabled and limited in ECEC settings, but also actively developed in concert with language learning by children themselves.

Solidarity during the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from a nine-country interview study in Europe

Calls for solidarity have been an ubiquitous feature in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, we know little about how people have thought of and practised solidarity in their...

Gendered ethnic choice effects at the transition to upper secondary education in Switzerland.

Positive ethnic choice effects, namely a higher likelihood of attending more demanding educational tracks among students of immigrant origin compared to their native peers, are observed in many countries. Immigrant optimism, and thus the striving for upward social mobility, is seen as a key mechanism for explaining ethnic choice effects. However, research on this topic often ignores gendered educational pathways and trajectories. Based on data from German-speaking Switzerland on two school-leaver cohorts, our interest is on whether ethnic choice effects are observable for both female and male students whose parents were born in the Balkans, Turkey or Portugal. In addition, we examine the extent to which aspirations contribute to explaining ethnic choice effects for both genders. To disentangle the direct effect of a migration background and the mediating effect of aspirations on educational attainment at upper secondary level, we apply the reformulated KHB method in our analyzes. Overall, our findings indicate that migrant women have made up ground on their native peers between the two school-leaving cohorts, contributing to the widening of the gender gap within the migrant group of interest. Of particular importance, however, is our finding that ethnic choice effects are observed only for men, while we do not observe any evidence of ethnic choice effects in the sample of women. Consistent with previous findings, our results show that aspirations mediate part of the ethnic choice effect. Our findings support the consideration that the room for ethnic choice effects is related to the proportion of young men and women striving for academic education, with gender differences in this regard being particularly pronounced in education systems with a high degree of vocational specificity.

Newspaper coverage on solidarity and personal responsibility in the COVID-19 pandemic: A content analysis from Germany and German-speaking Switzerland

Solidarity and personal responsibility have been repeatedly called upon during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study quantifies and contextualizes the use of these terms in newspaper coverage in Germany and German-speaking Switzerland based on n = 640 articles from six functionally equivalent newspapers. The term solidarity in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic was mentioned in 541/640 articles (84.5%) and was primarily used during phases with high death rates and comparatively stringent policies in place, supporting the idea that solidarity was used to explain restrictive measures to the population and motivate people to comply with these measures. German newspapers published more articles on solidarity than Swiss-German newspapers, consistent with more stringent COVID-19 policies in Germany. Personal responsibility was mentioned in 133/640 articles (20.8%), meaning that the term was less frequently discussed than solidarity. Articles covering personal responsibility included more negative evaluations during phases of high infection rates as compared to phases of low infection rates. Findings indicate that the two terms were, at least to some extent, used in newspaper reporting to contextualize and justify COVID-19 policy during phases of high infection rates. Moreover, the term solidarity was used in a high variety of different contexts and the inherent limits of solidarity were rarely mentioned. Policymakers and journalists need to take this into account for future crises to not jeopardize the positive effects of solidarity.