Abstract
Objectives:To investigate the mental status of pregnant women and to describe their
obstetrical choices during the outbreak of COVID-19.
Design: A cross-sectional study.
Setting: Wuhan and Chongqing, two different epidemic areas.
Population: A total of 1947 valid questionnaires were received.
Methods: We collected information on demographic, pregnancy,
and epidemic, along with their attitudes towards the epidemic, anxiety
status and obstetrical choices. We described and compared the city-based
distribution of all above factors, aiming to explain how anxiety and
obstetrical choices existed and differed.
Main Outcome Measures: To explore why differences existed, we
estimated the impact of the epidemic on women’s anxiety by multivariable
analysis.
Results: Distribution differences could be seen between cities
in employment status, household income, gestational age, fetal number,
and exposure history. Women’s attitudes towards COVID-19 in Wuhan were
more extreme than that in Chongqing. The anxiety rate was more than
double in Wuhan (24.47%) compared to that in Chongqing (10.44%).
Generally speaking, obstetrical choices were similar among the 1947
participants, but more obvious in Wuhan.
Conclusions: Our study found that the outbreak aggravated
prenatal anxiety, and the influence factors could be targets of mental
care. Synchronously, vital obstetrical choices changed,
followed
by pertinent professional advice to prevent irreversible adverse
pregnancy outcomes. Online platforms may play crucial roles to address
patients’ needs in future PHEs.
Funding: National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.
81771614 and No. 81771613), and the National Key Research and
Development Program of China (No. 2016YFC1000407).
Keywords: COVID-19; Pregnancy; Prenatal Anxiety; Obstetrical
Choices.