The Effect of an Educational program about COVID-19 for Pregnant Women on the Occurrence of Postpartum Depression

Farrag Hamza, Enaam Abdellatif; Ahmad Mohammad, Asmaa Mohammad; Hassan Osman, Zeinab Hassan; El-Adham, Nadia Ahmed

doi:10.21608/asnj.2024.251432.1724

The Effect of an Educational program about COVID-19 for Pregnant Women on the Occurrence of Postpartum Depression

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ Assistant Professor of Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing, Faculty of Nursing, Fayoum University, Egypt.

² Lecturer at Maternity and Newborn Health Nursing, Faculty of Nursing, Fayoum University, Egypt.

³ Assistant Professor of Community Health Nursing, Faculty of Nursing, Fayoum University, Egypt

10.21608/asnj.2024.251432.1724

Abstract

Background: Postpartum Depression (PPD) is a highly prevalent psychological morbidity among pregnant and parturient women; it could be affected by COVID-19 pandemic. Aim of the study: To assess the Effect of an Educational program about COVID-19 for pregnant women on the Occurrence of postpartum depression. Subjects and methods: quasi-experimental controlled pre-post study was conducted at the MCH Unit of Obstetrics and Gynecology at El-Fayoum city on 230 pregnant women attending the setting randomly and equally divided into the intervention group to receive educational program and a control group A self-administsred questionnaire with Edinburgh Post-Partum Depression (PPD) scale was used in data collection. The work was done through assessment, educational program planning, implementation, and evaluation phases. Results: The intervention group knowledge, attitude, and practice significantly increased after the educational program (p < 0.001). Pre-intervention PPD 31.3% in the intervention group of PPD and 15.7% in the control group (p=0.005). At Time 2 (1 week postpartum), the prevalence in the control group was 94.8% compared to 33.9% in the intervention group (p < 0.001). At Time 3 (6- week Follow-up), it was 100.0% in the control group and 58.3% in the intervention group (p < 0.001). The effect of the program on PPD was confirmed by multivariate analysis. Conclusion and recommendations: The provision of clear applied knowledge, positive attitudes, and correct practices related to COVID-19 to pregnant women is effective in decreasing the prevalence of PPD among them. It is recommended to implement the developed educational program in antenatal care settings.

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