Background: Here we present the results of a psychometric investigation on current fear of COVID-19 infection aggravated by the earthquake-induced stress in the group of puerperal women.
Subjects and methods: A group of 16 hospitalized puerperal women that gave birth at Clinical Hospital Sveti Duh in Zagreb, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology were enrolled in retrospective clinical investigation. All the patients delivered during COVID-19 pandemic and experienced devastating earthquake on March 22nd. The women were interviewed on the exact day of the earthquake, 4 hours after the main hit and 6 months after that during second pandemic wave on October of the same year. Women were also questioned about the breastfeeding. The participants provided written informed consent and were interviewed using Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-item (GAD-7) scale for evaluation of generalized anxiety disorder.
Results: Minimal level of anxiety after the earthquake was shown for 10 mothers with 6 of them having the highest level 4. Mild anxiety was proven for 3 patients, 2 exhibited moderate anxiety with one puerperal women with severe anxiety. One could say that 37.5% of enrolled patients exhibited some degree of anxiety after the earthquake (scoring >5). At second time point during COVID-19 pandemic 13 participants had minimal anxiety score, 2 had mild, while 1 participant had moderate score evaluated by GAD-7 scale (18.8%). At the time of the earthquake 13 participants were breastfeeding (81.3%), while 3 were not due to the personal reasons. 6 months after the earthquake only 7 mothers were breastfeeding (43.8%), while 9 of the participants were feeding their children with adapted milk (56%). Main reason for breastfeeding discontinuation was the stop of milk secretion in the 6 months period after the delivery.
Conclusions: To our knowledge, our study is the only national study dealing with mental health problems in a population of puerperal and breastfeeding mothers in a challenging time of COVID-19 pandemic aggravated by devastating earthquake.