The prevalence of mental ill-health in women during pregnancy and after childbirth during the Covid-19 pandemic: a systematic review and Meta-analysis

Journal article

Introduction: Little is known about Quality of Life within the first court of unvaccinated COVID-19 pregnant women exposed to the pandemic stressor. Primary aim of this study was to evaluate 1 year after hospital discharge HRQoL in a cohort of COVID-19 unvaccinated pregnant patients with COVID-19. Methods: in this prospective observational study, all COVID-19 positive pregnant women at any gestational age, admitted to the Obstetric Department at the University Hospital of Udine, Italy, from 1 March 2020 to 1 March 2021, requiring or not oxygen supplementation due to SARS-CoV2 pneumonia were evaluated. Patients with a history of neurological or psychiatric disease, those with a previous abortion, and those who refused to provide written informed consent were excluded from the study. We investigated pregnant positive COVID-19 women Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) with the Short-Form Health Survey-36 (SF-36) and Post-traumatic Stress-Disorder (PTSD) with the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R). Results: 62 pregnant women respected the inclusion criteria of the study, and data from 33 patients were analyzed. The mean age was 32 ± 6 years, with a median gestational age of 38 weeks [IQR 34–40]. 15.2% of patients required oxygen therapy through noninvasive respiratory support (with high flow nasal cannula) for a median of 9 days [IQR 6–12]. The median Physical Component Summary (PCS) and Mental Component Summary (MCS) scores were 50.2 [IQR 46.7–53.7] and 56.0 [IQR 46.8–60.6] respectively. Ten patients out of 33 (30%) tested positive for PTSD. Maternal age, gestational age, and history of cardiac-pulmonary-kidney disease significantly affected HRQoL at multivariable analysis. Discussion: In COVID-19 pregnant unvaccinated women some physical impairments reducing HRQoL are still present 1 year after hospital discharge. Previous medical history such as history of cardiac-pulmonary-kidney disease significantly affected HRQoL. Long and repeated follow-up should be pursued in this category of patients. Clinical trial registration:ClinicalTrials.gov, Identifier NCT04860687

Authors: Delanerolle, G; McCauley, M; Hirsch, M; Zeng, Y; Cong, X

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: BioMed Central
• Journal: BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth
• Volume: 23
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 76-76
• Article number: 76
• Publication date: 2023-01-28
• DOI: 10.1186/s12884-022-05243-4
• EISSN: 1471-2393
• ISSN: 1471-2393
• Language: English
• Keywords: Medicine; Reproductive medicine; Internal medicine; Disease; Mental health; PsycINFO; Meta-analysis; Anxiety; Depression (economics); Pregnancy; MEDLINE; Psychiatry; Childbirth; Pandemic; Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)