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©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
Pregnancy-related psychopathology: A comparison between pre-COVID-19 and COVID-19–related social restriction periods
Daniela Chieffo, Carla Avallone, Annamaria Serio, Georgios Demetrios Kotzalidis, Marta Balocchi, Ilaria De Luca, Daniele Hirsch, Angela Gonsalez del Castillo, Pierluigi Lanzotti, Giuseppe Marano, Lucio Rinaldi, Antonio Lanzone, Eugenio Mercuri, Marianna Mazza, Gabriele Sani
Daniela Chieffo, Annamaria Serio, Marta Balocchi, Service of Clinical Psychology, Catholic University of Sacred Heart, Rome 00168, Italy
Carla Avallone, Georgios Demetrios Kotzalidis, Ilaria De Luca, Daniele Hirsch, Angela Gonsalez del Castillo, Pierluigi Lanzotti, Giuseppe Marano, Lucio Rinaldi, Gabriele Sani, Department of Neurosciences, Catholic University of Sacred Heart , Rome 00168, Italy
Antonio Lanzone, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Catholic University of Sacred Heart, Rome 00168, Italy
Eugenio Mercuri, Paediatric Neurology Unit, Catholic University of Sacred Heart, Rome 00168, Italy
Marianna Mazza, Department of Geriatrics, Neuroscience and Orthopedics, Fondazione Policlinico Universitario Agostino Gemelli IRCCS, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Rome 00168, Italy
Author contributions: Chieffo D, Avallone C, Kotzalidis GD, and Mazza M designed the study and wrote the first draft of the manuscript; Serio A, Balocchi M, De Luca I, Hirsch D, Gonsalez del Castillo A, Lanzotti P, Marano G, Rinaldi L, Lanzone A, Mercuri E, and Sani G supervised and added important contributions to the paper; all authors have read and agreed to the final version of the manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: The study received approval from the local ethics committee (Ethics Committee of the Fondazione Policlinico Universitario Agostino Gemelli IRCCS, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Rome, Rome, Italy). Patients completed a free and informed consent form and volunteered participated in the study.
Conflict-of-interest statement: No author has any conflicts of interest.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See:
https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/ Corresponding author: Georgios Demetrios Kotzalidis, MD, Senior Researcher, Department of Neurosciences, Catholic University of Sacred Heart, Sapienza University, School of Medicine and Psychology, Sant'Andrea Hospital, Rome 00168, Italy. giorgio.kotzalidis@uniroma1.it
Received: October 29, 2021
Peer-review started: October 29, 2021
First decision: December 12, 2021
Revised: December 13, 2021
Accepted: May 8, 2022
Article in press: May 8, 2022
Published online: July 6, 2022
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic impacted women’s mental health, particularly the pregnant population. The greater vulnerability of women during the COVID-19 restriction period may translate into a greater risk for mental disorders in the gestational period.
Research motivation
We hypothesised that pregnant women in the pre-pandemic period would have less psychopathology and more psychological support than pregnant women during the pandemic restriction period.
Research objectives
To compare pregnant women for anxiety, prenatal depression, psychopathology, and social support before and after the awareness of the pandemic.
Research methods
We administered to pregnant women the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale, the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory Form Y, and the Symptom CheckList-90-Revised before the COVID-19 outbreak (nonCOVID-19 sample) and after the COVID-19–related restrictive measures (COVID-19 sample). We further collected sociodemographic variables and explored women’s social support.
Research results
The nonCOVID-19 group reported higher support from partners only, while the COVID-19 group reported multiple support; the nonCOVID-19 group scored higher than the COVID-19 group only on state anxiety, while other measures did not differ meaningfully between the two groups. Our results do not confirm increased depression and anxiety rates in pregnant women during the pandemic.
Research conclusions
Social support may have produced anxiolysis in the COVID-19 sample.
Research perspectives
Future studies focusing on maternal mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic period should employ longitudinal designs and verify the course of anxiety, depression, stress, and post-traumatic stress-related symptoms, sleep problems, and psychotic symptoms in women who are pregnant and in those who are not. Particular attention should be paid to the timing of testing, the use of specific instruments for depression and anxiety in the perinatal period, and the effects of social isolation and COVID-19 threat on mood.
