The Disruptions of Maternal Health Care Service Utilization during Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Background:    The novel coronavirus (COVID-19), has both direct and indirect effects on key health services in multiple parts of the world, potentially leading to increased morbidity and death at various levels. Despite concerted global attempts to contain the pandemic, the virus is spreading in several countries. As a result, the extent of interruption to a variety of maternal health care services was measured in this study.

Methods:          We used the data from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) 2020. The COVID-19 Health Services Disruption Survey 2020 was a series of surveys designed to examine the amount of disruption to a variety of health services caused by the COVID-19 worldwide pandemic. The cross-sectional individual data among 76 countries were smartphone-based Premise data-collecting technology. This study involved 667 respondents, who were pregnant or had given birth during the previous 6 months at the time of the survey (July 2020). The variables analyzed descriptively included times ANC planned and attempted, type of health facility visited during birth delivery, birth attendants, services the newborn received following the delivery.

Results:             Of 667 respondents, 50.54% were at the age of 16-25, 45.13% graduated from college, and live in the city center or metropolitan area (39.28%). 17.54% didn't attend the ANC, thus the ANC4 coverage was 9.75%. The closure of a health facility and a lack of funds were two major reasons they did not attend ANC (65.169.68%) respectively). Hospitals were the top among facility-based delivery and 70.48% of them were attended by doctors.

Conclusion:      ANC coverage was impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic due to the health facility closure, economic disruption, and transportation unavailability