To avoid spreading the Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), health authorities have forced people to reorganize their working and private lives and to avoid open and public spaces as much as possible. This has also been the case for women both during pregnancy and after delivery. Here, we investigated the associations between subjective beliefs in risk of infections and health anxiety, depression, stress, and other perinatal dimensions. To this end, we assessed 103 women (mean age: 28.57 years) during pregnancy and after delivery. They completed a series of questionnaires covering sociodemographic information, perinatal information, health anxiety, post-partum depression, and stress. Sixty-six participants (64.1%) were in the pre-partum stage, and 37 (35.9%) were post-partum. Health anxiety was unrelated to depression or stress. Knowing and being close to infected people was associated with higher health anxiety. Strict following of the safety recommendations was associated with greater health anxiety, depression, and stress. Postponing or cancelling routine medical check appointments was observed among participants with high health anxiety scores. Higher illness severity, overall health anxiety scores, and lower stress scores predicted those participants who postponed or cancelled their routine medical check appointments. Post-partum stage and a larger number of children were associated with higher stress scores, but not with depression or stress. The results are of practical and clinical importance; it appears that health anxiety, which is to say fear of getting infected with COVID-19 during pregnancy or at the post-partum stage, was associated with postponing or cancelling routine medical check appointments, but not with stress or depression.

Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the likelihood that hospital staff will report symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress has increased. The aim of this study was to evaluate the relative influences of circumstantial, demographic, and trait–state anxiety variables on health anxiety in this group. Methods: A total of 168 hospital staff members (mean age: 28.91 years; 56.5% females) participated in the study. They completed a series of questionnaires covering sociodemographic characteristics, health anxiety, state–trait anxiety, and job-related information. Participants also reported whether they had close acquaintances (friends, family members) infected with COVID-19. Results: Higher health anxiety was related to both trait and state anxiety. Working on the frontline, being in contact with close acquaintances infected with COVID-19, and higher state and trait anxiety predicted higher health anxiety. Gender, age, and educational background were not predictors. Conclusions: In a sample of hospital staff, subjective feelings of anxiety about one own’s health were related to personality traits, individual experiences of having close acquaintances infected with COVID-19, and working on the frontline.

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