Health-related quality of life in different trimesters during pregnancy

Huailiang Wu; Weiwei Sun; Hanqing Chen; Yanxin Wu; Wenjing Ding; Shangqiang Liang; Xinyu Huang; Haitian Chen; Qing Zeng; Zhuyu Li; Peng Xiong; Jian Huang; Babatunde Akinwunmi; Casper J P Zhang; Wai-Kit Ming

doi:10.1186/s12955-021-01811-y

Health-related quality of life in different trimesters during pregnancy

Health Qual Life Outcomes. 2021 Jul 21;19(1):182. doi: 10.1186/s12955-021-01811-y.

Authors

Huailiang Wu^#^{1

2}, Weiwei Sun^#^{1

2}, Hanqing Chen^#³, Yanxin Wu³, Wenjing Ding³, Shangqiang Liang^{1

2}, Xinyu Huang^{1

2}, Haitian Chen³, Qing Zeng³, Zhuyu Li³, Peng Xiong¹, Jian Huang^{4

5}, Babatunde Akinwunmi^{6

7}, Casper J P Zhang⁸, Wai-Kit Ming^{9

10}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, School of Medicine, Jinan University, Guangzhou, China.
² Faculty of Medicine, International School, Jinan University, Guangzhou, China.
³ Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China.
⁴ Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Imperial College London, London, UK.
⁵ Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences (SICS), Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore, Singapore.
⁶ Maternal-Fetal Medicine Unit, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, USA.
⁷ Center for Genomic Medicine (CGM), Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA.
⁸ School of Public Health, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
⁹ Department of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, School of Medicine, Jinan University, Guangzhou, China. wkming@connect.hku.hk.
¹⁰ Faculty of Medicine, International School, Jinan University, Guangzhou, China. wkming@connect.hku.hk.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Background: Pregnant women experience physical, physiological, and mental changes. Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is a relevant indicator of psychological and physical behaviours, changing over the course of pregnancy. This study aims to assess HRQoL of pregnant women during different stages of pregnancy.

Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed using the The EuroQoL Group's five-dimension five-level questionnaire (EQ-5D-5L) to assess the HRQoL of pregnant women, and demographic data were collected. This study was conducted in a regional university hospital in Guangzhou, China.

Results: A total of 908 pregnant women were included in this study. Pregnant women in the early 2^nd trimester had the highest HRQoL. The HRQoL of pregnant women rose from the 1st trimester to the early 2nd trimester, and dropped to the bottom at the late 3rd trimester due to some physical and mental changes. Reports of pain/discomfort problem were the most common (46.0%) while self-care were the least concern. More than 10% of pregnant women in the 1st trimester had health-related problems in at least one dimension of whole five dimensions. In the whole sample, the EuroQoL Group's visual analog scale (EQ-VAS) was 87.86 ± 9.16. Across the gestational stages, the HRQoL remained stable during the pregnancy but the highest value was observed in the 1st trimester (89.65 ± 10.13) while the lowest was in the late 3rd trimester (87.28 ± 9.13).

Conclusions: During pregnancy, HRQoL were associated with gestational trimesters in a certain degree. HRQoL was the highest in the early 2nd trimester and then decreased to the lowest in the late 3rd trimester due to a series of physical and psychological changes. Therefore, obstetric doctors and medical institutions should give more attention and care to pregnant women in the late 3rd trimester.

Keywords: EQ-5D-5L; HRQoL; Health-related quality of life; Pregnancy; Pregnant women; Trimesters.

MeSH terms

Adult
China
Cross-Sectional Studies
Female
Hospitals, University
Humans
Pregnancy
Pregnancy Trimesters*
Pregnant Women / psychology*
Quality of Life*
Surveys and Questionnaires