The COVID-19 pandemic impact on prenatal depression : A Cross-sectional comparative study

Abstract

Introduction Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is the current world issue, with huge impact on mental health. More specifically,we expect that it will have a naocif effect on the pregnant women’s mental health and their well being, since they are more likely to be hospitalized and require more intensive care units admission than non- pregnant women. Objectives The aim of this work was to evaluate the evolution of depression symptoms in the time of pandemic and their associated factors. Methods In the current work, we conducted a comparative in field cross-sectional study. We compared depressive scores and prevalences before and after the COVID-19 outbreak in Tunisia in pregnant women.The sampling period was outside the lockdown period to avoid quarantine bias. The sampling period was from September to October 2020. Results showed a significantly higher prevalence of depressive symptoms in expecting mothers during the pandemic. Multivariate analysis showed that the pandemic multiplied by 3 the risk of severe depression symptoms. The impact of the COVID-19 period on depression was independent of sociodemographic and obstetric changes related to the pandemic. Conclusions These results highlighted the emergency of preparing strategies to avoid post-partum psychiatric disorders and to enable a healthy development of born. Screening the post-partum depression and assessing the mother-children early interactions should be considered in the up-coming births. Disclosure No significant relationships.

Keywords

• Depression
• Impact
• pregnant
• Coronavirus-2019