Pregnancy care and the relationship between psychological factors and selfcare for pregnant women during the COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Research on the efforts made to prevent the transmission of COVID-19 in pregnant women with online antenatal care and the telehealth method as well as visits to obstetric polyclinics with improved service strategies have been carried out. However, the strategy of midwifery care by paying attention to the anxiety experienced by pregnant women in carrying out self-care during pregnancy during a pandemic and combined with policies from health workers has not been studied. The strategy applied in a pandemic situation must take into account the socio-demographic conditions of the community. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore the factors that influence maternity care and find interventions and strategies to develop prenatal care guidelines. This research has the potential to be applied to the socio-demographic conditions of the middle class.Methods: The data used in this study were psychological and self-care data for pregnant women during the COVID-19 pandemic, involving 65 respondents at the Endang Widayat Maternity Hospital Sidoarjo from April to June 2021. This study is a mixed method study so the data collection process includes quantitative data. and qualitative data. Quantitative data were collected through questionnaires given to pregnant women, while qualitative data was conducted by conducting in-depth interviews with health workers who carried out pregnancy check-ups.Results: This study showed that more than half (61.5%) of respondents had moderate self-efficacy and low psychological factors or anxiety. In addition, the bivariate analysis showed that age, education, occupation, parity status, and psychological factors have a significant association with self-efficacy with p-value respectively 0.01, 0.00, 0.03, 0.01, and 0.00.Conclusion: The study was conducted to explore the factors that influence pregnancy care and that self-efficacy is related to age, education, occupation, and parity. Self-efficacy also affects the psychological factors of mothers during the Covid 19 pandemic. Pregnancy care during the Covid 19 pandemic is focused on increasing the mother's ability in daily self-care to minimize the spread of Covid 19 to pregnant women.