Experiences of receiving and providing maternity care during the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia: A five-cohort cross-sectional comparison

  1. Zoe Bradfield
  2. Karen Wynter
  3. Yvonne Hauck
  4. Vidanka Vasilevski
  5. Lesley Kuliukas
  6. Alyce N. Wilson
  7. Rebecca A. Szabo
  8. Caroline S. E. Homer
  9. Linda Sweet

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Abstract

The global COVID-19 pandemic has radically changed the way health care is delivered in many countries around the world. Evidence on the experience of those receiving or providing maternity care is important to guide practice through this challenging time.

Methods

A cross-sectional study was conducted in Australia. Five key stakeholder cohorts were included to explore and compare the experiences of those receiving or providing care during the COVID-19 pandemic. Women, their partners, midwives, medical practitioners and midwifery students who had received or provided maternity care from March 2020 onwards in Australia were recruited via social media and invited to participate in an online survey released between 13 th May and 24 th June 2020; a total of 3701 completed responses were received.

Findings

While anxiety related to COVID-19 was high among all five cohorts, there were statistically significant differences between the responses from each cohort for most survey items. Women were more likely to indicate concern about their own and family’s health and safety in relation to COVID-19 whereas midwives, doctors and midwifery students were more likely to be concerned about occupational exposure to COVID-19 through working in a health setting than those receiving care through attending these environments. Midwifery students and women’s partners were more likely to respond that they felt isolated because of the changes to the way care was provided. Despite concerns about care received or provided not meeting expectations, most respondents were satisfied with the quality of care provided, although midwives and midwifery students were less likely to agree.

Conclusion

This paper provides a unique exploration and comparison of experiences of receiving and providing maternity care during the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia. Findings are useful to support further service changes and future service redesign. New evidence provided offers unique insight into key stakeholders’ experiences of the rapid changes to health services.

Article activity feed

  1. Version published to 10.1371/journal.pone.0248488
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.09.22.20199331: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementConsent: Informed consent was indicated by participants’ selecting a check box before proceeding to complete the survey.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variableMost women receive support from a partner or designated companion (19).

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Data Analysis: Data were imported into IBM SPSS Statistics v26.
    SPSS
    suggested: (SPSS, RRID:SCR_002865)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Strengths and Limitations: The strengths of this study lie in the exploration of a range of stakeholders’ perspectives of receiving or providing maternity care during the COVD-19 pandemic. The large sample size and timely data collection during the early peak of the pandemic has resulted in a data set that has significant utility and addresses a known gap in evidence regarding the Australian responses to maternity care during the COVID-19 pandemic, with implications that may also be relevant for consideration by other nations which have had higher prevalence rates of the COVID-19 virus. The limitations of this research are related to the convenience sampling technique used, which involves a non-random selection of participants. The rationale for this selection has been previously described and was an important consideration for reducing the burden to a population with recognised distress during the pandemic. As is commonly found in survey-based data collection in Anglophone nations, our study was completed by participants who most often speak English at home; as such caution is advised when considering the transferability of the findings to non-English speaking groups.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.09.22.20199331v1 on medRxiv