Percepção sobre o suporte social de mulheres que gestaram na pandemia da COVID- 19

Abstract

COVID-19 has proven to be the greatest challenge humanity has faced since the end of World War II. Considering the physiological changes inherent to pregnancy, especially in the immune and respiratory systems, pregnant women were included in the risk group due to the risk of contagion. In this context, this dissertation aimed to identify the perception of social support among women who became pregnant during the COVID-19 pandemic. To achieve this purpose, the research was organized into two complementary studies. Study I consisted of a scoping review of the literature, aiming to explore the state of the art on the topic. The Preferred

Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA- ScR) extension was used. The search conducted in the SciELO, Web of Science, MEDLINE,

PsycNET, and Scopus databases resulted in 1,407 studies, of which 24 met the inclusion criteria. The data revealed that social support acts as a relevant strategy in reducing loneliness during pregnancy. It was also observed that pregnant women subjected to isolation and with low social support presented higher levels of psychological distress. Study II was characterized as a field study aimed to identify the perception of social support of women who became pregnant during the most critical period of the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants who became pregnant between April 2020 and December 2021 were included, excluding those outside this

period. Data collection was conducted online, using a Google Forms questionnaire, with non- probability convenience sampling. The sample consisted of 224 women, with a mean age of 30

years (SD = 5.69), ranging from 18 to 46 years. The instruments used were three scales—the Perceived Social Support Scale (EPSS), the Fear of COVID-19 in the Perinatal Period Scale (EMC19-9), and the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS-21)—in addition to a sociodemographic questionnaire. The results showed that, although women perceived themselves receiving social support, no statistically significant correlations were found between social support and fear of COVID-19, nor between social support and the DASS-21 factors. On the other hand, significant correlations were found between fear of COVID-19 and the DASS-21 factors: depression (r = 0.38, p < 0.01), anxiety (r = 0.50, p < 0.01) and stress (r = 0.48, p < 0.01). Furthermore, fear of COVID-19 was found to have predictive power over symptoms of depression (β = 0.35, p < 0.000), anxiety (β = 0.44, p < 0.000), and stress (β = 0.44, p < 0.000), explaining, respectively, 14%, 24%, and 23% of the variability in these symptoms among pregnant women. Thus, the findings of the scoping review corroborate the literature by highlighting social support as a protective factor, playing an important role in preventing mental illness. However, the empirical results of this study did not demonstrate significant correlations between social support and mental health, but they did highlight a strong association between fear of COVID-19 and symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress in women who became pregnant during the most critical period of the pandemic.