Becoming a Parent During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Austria and Germany

University of Salzburg

Status: Completed

Conditions: Parents; COVID-19 Pandemic

Study type: Observational

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT05487105

EK-GZ12/2013-Addendum-07/2021

Details and patient eligibility

About

This is an online survey in Austria and Germany directed at parents with children born since the start of the first lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic (birthdate beginning with 16.03.2020). The survey includes questions about:

• current stress levels and depressive symptoms,
• resilience during the pandemic,
• social support,
• retrospective birth risk factors, pregnancy distress and pregnancy experience,
• demographic factors and
• other questions related to parenting and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Full description

The study evaluated data collected in the course of an online survey during the COVID-19 pandemic in Austria and Germany. The questions were conceived to reflect aspects of pregnancy, childbirth and early child rearing that could be affected by the pandemic, and included commonly used and previously validated scores for assessing pregnancy distress (Pregnancy Distress Questionnaire, PDQ), birth experiences (Childbirth Experience Questionnaire 2, CEQ2) postnatal depression (Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale, EPDS), perceived stress (Perceived Stress Scale, PSS) and pandemic-related experiences (pandemic resilience part, adapted to postnatal period, from the Pandemic Related Stress in Pregnancy Scale, PREPS). In addition, the investigators composed questions and scales that referred to specific pandemic- and parenting-related issues that were not covered otherwise. The investigators also tried to question both the fathers and the mothers, and consequently mothers received more pregnancy-related questions than fathers. Furthermore, biological mothers received childbirth-related questions which were omitted for adoptive mothers.

Enrollment: 2,226 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 65 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• parents that had a baby born since the 16th of March 2020 (which corresponds to the beginning of the first lockdown in Austria and in Bavaria, Germany)
• living in Austria or Germany

Exclusion criteria

• stillborn or neonatal death