Psychological responses and lifestyle changes among pregnant women with respect to the early stages of COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Objectives: The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a profound impact on health and well-being of populations. However, there are limited studies that have investigated the psychological aspects of vulnerable groups including pregnant women amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, we aimed to assess the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic among Chinese pregnant women from February 2020 until March 2020. Methods: Our study was conducted using a modified validated online questionnaire comprising of sociodemographic, the Impact of Event Scale (IES), attitude and mental health-related questions towards COVID-19. Results: A total of 560 women were included. The overall mean age and IES of women was 25.8 ± 2.7 years and 31.4 ± 13.7. Moreover, 67.1% of them had IES ⩾26. Psychological impact seemed to be more severe in women in second trimester of pregnancy (the highest IES) ( p = .016). There was a significant association between trimesters of pregnancy and some indicators of negative health impacts (including increased stress from work, increased stress from home, feeling apprehensive and helpless during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic) (all p < .05). Conclusions: Our results reported moderate-to-severe stressful impact among Chinese pregnant women. We recommend that appropriate measures should be taken to address the maternal mental health issues.

Psychological effects caused by COVID-19 pandemic on pregnant women: A systematic review with meta-analysis

“…The mean stress score of 126 pregnant women was 8.50 ± 5.06 ( Gu et al, 2020 ). In a study of the psychological reactions among pregnant women to the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, most of pregnant women reported increased financial stress (69.3 %), work stress (62.9 %), and home stress (59.6 %) ( Zhang and Ma, 2020 ). Besides, a descriptive-analytical cross-sectional study reported mild stress symptoms (16/205, 7.8 %), moderate stress symptoms (32/205, 15.6 %), and high stress symptoms (16/205, 7.6 %), extremely severe stress symptoms (3/205, 1.5 %), and the mean (standard deviation,SD) score of stress was 6.22 (4.25) ( Effati-Daryani et al, 2020 ).…”

Mental Health of Pregnant and Postpartum Women During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…A total of 23 studies (Ayaz et al, 2020;Berthelot et al, 2020;Ceulemans et al, 2020;Durankuş and Aksu, 2020;Farewell et al, 2020;Gu et al, 2020;He et al, 2020;Lebel et al, 2020;Li et al, 2020;Liu et al, 2020;Mappa et al, 2020;Matsushima and Horiguchi, 2020;Oskovi-Kaplan et al, 2020;Parra-Saavedra et al, 2020;Patabendige et al, 2020;Preis et al, 2020;Saccone et al, 2020;Sade et al, 2020;Silverman et al, 2020;Wu et al, 2020b;Yue et al, 2020;Zanardo et al, 2020;Zhang and Ma, 2020) performed with 20 569 participants (16,797 pregnant women and 3,772 postpartum women) during the COVID-19 pandemic and with 3,677 pregnant women before the COVID-19 pandemic were included in this systematic review and metaanalysis. A total of 19 studies (Ceulemans et al, 2020;Durankuş and Aksu, 2020;Farewell et al, 2020;He et al, 2020;Lebel et al, 2020;Li et al, 2020;Liu et al, 2020;Mappa et al, 2020;Matsushima and Horiguchi, 2020;Oskovi-Kaplan et al, 2020;Parra-Saavedra et al, 2020;Patabendige et al, 2020;Preis et al, 2020;Saccone et al, 2020;…”

“…A total of 19 studies (Ceulemans et al, 2020;Durankuş and Aksu, 2020;Farewell et al, 2020;He et al, 2020;Lebel et al, 2020;Li et al, 2020;Liu et al, 2020;Mappa et al, 2020;Matsushima and Horiguchi, 2020;Oskovi-Kaplan et al, 2020;Parra-Saavedra et al, 2020;Patabendige et al, 2020;Preis et al, 2020;Saccone et al, 2020;Sade et al, 2020;Silverman et al, 2020;Wu et al, 2020b;Yue et al, 2020;Zhang and Ma, 2020) were cross-sectional, and 4 (Ayaz et al, 2020;Berthelot et al, 2020;Gu et al, 2020;Zanardo et al, 2020) were case-control studies. Among the 23 studies, 7 were located in China (Gu et al, 2020;He et al, 2020;Li et al, 2020;Liu et al, 2020;Wu et al, 2020b;Yue et al, 2020;Zhang and Ma, 2020), 3 were implemented in America (Farewell et al, 2020;Preis et al, 2020;Silverman et al, 2020), 3 were performed in Turkey (Ayaz et al, 2020;Durankuş and Aksu, 2020;Oskovi-Kaplan et al, 2020), 3 were undertaken in Italy (Mappa et al, 2020;Saccone et al, 2020;…”

“…Psychological distress was evaluated in 3 studies (Li et al, 2020;Saccone et al, 2020;Zhang and Ma, 2020) with 705 pregnant women (Figure 4). The pooled prevalence rate of psychological distress among pregnant women was 70% (95% CI 60-79%, I 2 = 76.7%).…”

“…The pooled prevalence rate of psychological distress among pregnant women was 70% (95% CI 60-79%, I 2 = 76.7%). After excluding a study with a high risk of bias, 2 studies with a low risk of bias (Saccone et al, 2020;Zhang and Ma, 2020) showed a pooled prevalence rate of psychological distress among pregnant women of 66% (95% CI 63-70%, I 2 = 30.6%). The pooled prevalence rate of psychological distress among postpartum women was not evaluated due to the limited data available.…”