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Author(s)
Sarie J. Oosthuizen,
AnneMarie Bergh,
Antonella Silver,
Refilwe Malatji,
Vivian Mfolo,
Tanita Botha
Publication year2022
Publication title
african journal of primary health care and family medicine
Resource typeJournals
PublisherAOSIS
Background: Mental health manifestations such as depression and anxiety disorders became more marked during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic as frontline healthcare workers struggled to maintain high-quality intrapartum care and essential health services.Aim: This study aimed to identify maternity healthcare providers’ self-perceptions of changes in their feelings of mental well-being.Setting: Ten midwife obstetric units and the labour wards of four district hospitals in Tshwane Health District, South Africa.Methods: We conducted an anonymous, cross-sectional survey amongst a convenience sample of 114 maternity healthcare workers to gauge the changes in healthcare workers’ experience and perceptions of well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. Four items measured the perceived changes on a scale of 0–10 for the periods before and during COVID-19, respectively, namely feelings of fear or anxiety, stress, depression and anger.Results: The majority of participants were professional nurses (37%) and advanced midwives (47%). They reported a significant change in well-being from before the pandemic to during the pandemic with regard to all four items (p 0.0001). The biggest ‘before-during’ difference was in perceptions of fear or anxiety and the smallest difference was in perceptions of anger. A framework was constructed from the open-ended responses to explain healthcare workers’ understanding and perceptions of increased negative feelings regarding their mental well-being.Conclusion: The observed trends in the changes in healthcare workers’ self-perceptions of their mental well-being highlight the need for further planning to build resilient frontline healthcare workers and provide them with ongoing mental health support and improved communication pathways.
Subject(s)anger , anxiety , covid-19 , disease , economic growth , economics , family medicine , feeling , health care , infectious disease (medical specialty) , medicine , mental health , nursing , pandemic , pathology , psychiatry , psychology , social psychology
Language(s)English
SCImago Journal Rank0.654
H-Index20
eISSN2071-2936
pISSN2071-2928
DOI10.4102/phcfm.v14i1.3034
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