‘It’s not as good as the face-to-face contact’: A sociomaterialist analysis of the use of virtual care among Canadian gay, bisexual and queer men during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic led to the widespread adoption of virtual care—the use of communication technologies to receive health care at home. We explored the differential impacts of the rapid transition to virtual care during the COVID-19 pandemic on health-care access and delivery for gay, bisexual and queer men (GBQM), a population that disproportionately experiences sexual and mental health disparities in Canada. Adopting a sociomaterial theoretical perspective, we analysed 93 semi-structured interviews with GBQM (n = 93) in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, Canada, conducted between November 2020 and February 2021 (n = 42) and June-October 2021 (n = 51). We focused on explicating how the dynamic relations of humans and non-humans in everyday virtual care practices have opened or foreclosed different care capacities for GBQM. Our analysis revealed that the rapid expansion and implementation of virtual care during the COVID-19 pandemic enacted disruptions and challenges while providing benefits to health-care access among some GBQM. Further, virtual care required participants to change their sociomaterial practices to receive health care effectively, including learning new ways of communicating with providers. Our sociomaterial analysis provides a framework that helps identify what works and what needs to be improved when delivering virtual care to meet the health needs of GBQM and other diverse populations.