Abstract
The COVID-ASSESS questionnaire (COVID-19 related Anxiety and StreSs in prEgnancy, poSt-partum and breaStfeeding) was developed and distributed by CiaoLapo Foundation, an Italian charity for healthy pregnancy and perinatal loss support. Data were collected during phase 1 and phase 2 of COVID-19 lockdown in Italy (March, April and May 2020).
The final dataset consists of 2448 women, of whom 1307 during pregnancy and 1141 women during post-partum or breastfeeding period. Variables collected for each subject are: sociodemographic and clinical information (previous losses, history of psychological disorders), birth expectations before and after COVID-19, concerns regarding pandemic consequences, perception of media and health professionals' information and communication on COVID-19, psychopathological assessment (anxiety, post-traumatic stress and general psychopathology).
Keywords: COVID-19, Pregnancy, Post-partum, Breastfeeding, Psychology, Psychiatry
Specifications Table
| Subject | Obstetrics, Gynecology and Women's Health |
| Specific subject area | Perinatal mental health |
| Type of data | Tables Graphs Figures |
| How data were acquired | Web based survey. An English translation of the questionnaire (originally in Italian) is provided as a supplementary file. |
| Data format | Raw Analyzed |
| Parameters for data collection | Participants voluntarily self-selected to complete the survey and they were considered eligible to complete the survey if women, over 18 and (a) currently pregnant or if (b) they gave birth after the 1st January 2019. |
| Description of data collection | A cross-sectional, web-based survey was conducted using an online questionnaire; participants were recruited via social networks using a snowball technique and sponsored social network advertisements. Participants voluntarily self-selected to complete the survey and gave their consent in an online form. |
| Data source location | Country: Italy (nation-wide) |
| Data accessibility | Repository name: Mendeley Data identification number: DOI: 10.17632/cn38pbwn7r.1 Direct URL to data: https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/cn38pbwn7r/1 |
| Related research article | Ravaldi C, Wilson A, Ricca V, Homer C, Vannacci A. Pregnant women voice their concerns and birth expectations during the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy. Women and Birth 2020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wombi.2020.07.002 Ravaldi C, Ricca V, Wilson A, Homer C, Vannacci A. Previous psychopathology predicted severe COVID-19 concern, anxiety and PTSD symptoms in pregnant women during lockdown in Italy. Archives of Women's Mental Health 2020 (in press) Preprint: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.08.26.20182436 |
Value of the Data
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Pregnant and postpartum women do not seem to be at higher risk of contracting COVID-19 or having important consequences from the infection.
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We have previously shown that, during lockdown period, Italian women were very concerned about the pandemic, particularly for the health of their baby, partner and elderly relatives.
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Here we reported data of sociodemographic characteristics of an Italian nation-wide community-based survey on COVID-19 related concerns and psychological impact in women during pregnancy, post-partum or breastfeeding period.
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Methods and data from this article may help researchers from all countries to conduct similar studies in their national settings.
1. Data Description
The final COVID-ASSESS dataset is available in Mendeley repository (https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/cn38pbwn7r/1) and consists of 2448 women, of whom 1307 during pregnancy and 1141 women during post-partum or breastfeeding period.
Fig. 1 shows the national distribution of the sample; Fig. 2 shows the distribution of age classes, Table 1 shows educational stages, classified according to UNESCO International Standard Classification of Education, Table 2 shows the duration of lockdown in days at the time of survey completion, Table 3 reports information on previous pregnancies and pregnancy losses, including miscarriages, stillbirths, neonatal losses and termination of pregnancies,voluntary or for medical reasons, Table 4A shows the distribution of trimesters for pregnant women, Table 4B shows the distribution of babies’ age for women in post-partum period and Table 5 shows personal and familiar psychopathological history. An English translation of the questionnaire is provided as a supplementary file.
Fig. 1.
Distribution of the sample among Italian provinces.
Fig. 2.
Distribution of age classes of the sample.
Table 1.
Educational stages, classified according to the international standard classification of education (UNESCO).
| Pregnant | After birth | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pre-primary | 1 (0.08%) | 1 (0.09%) | 2 (0.08%) |
| Primary | 1 (0.08%) | – | 1 (0.04%) |
| Lower secondary | 45 (3.44%) | 44 (3.86%) | 89 (3.64%) |
| Upper secondary | 341 (26.09%) | 335 (29.36%) | 676 (27.61%) |
| Post secondary (non-tertiary) | 334 (25.55%) | 264 (23.14%) | 598 (24.43%) |
| Tertiary (first stage) | 364 (27.85%) | 325 (28.48%) | 689 (28.15%) |
| Tertiary (second stage) | 221 (16.91%) | 172 (15.07%) | 393 (16.05%) |
Table 2.
Duration of lockdown (days) at the moment of the interview.
| Pregnant | After birth | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|
| <15 | 646 (49.5%) | 412 (36.1%) | 1058 (43.2%) |
| 15–30 | 369 (28.2%) | 358 (31.4%) | 727 (29.7%) |
| >30 | 292 (22.3%) | 371 (32.5%) | 663 (27.1%) |
Table 3.
Information on previous pregnancies and pregnancy losses, including miscarriages, stillbirths, neonatal losses and termination of pregnancies (voluntary or for medical reasons).
| Pregnant | After birth | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|
| First pregnancy | 449 (34.3%) | 422 (36.9%) | 871 (35.6%) |
| Previous losses | 499 (38.2%) | 407 (35.7%) | 906 (37.0%) |
Table 4.
Trimesters of pregnancy (A, for women pregnant at the moment of the interview) and baby's age (B, for women who had already given birth at the moment of the interview).
| First trimester | Second trimester | Third trimester | |
|---|---|---|---|
| A - Pregnancy | 148 (11.3%) | 551 (42.2%) | 608 (46.5%) |
| < 1.5 months | 1.5 – 4 months | > 4 months | |
|---|---|---|---|
| B – After birth | 870 (35.5%) | 813 (33.2%) | 765 (31.2%) |
Table 5.
Personal and familiar psychopathological history.
| Pregnant | After birth | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Previous psychopathology (personal) | 584 (44.6%) | 534 (46.8%) | 1118 (45.7%) |
| Anxiety | 413 (31.6%) | 337 (29.5%) | 750 (30.6%) |
| Depression | 129 (9.9%) | 107 (9.4%) | 236 (9.6%) |
| Bipolar Disorder | 6 (0.5%) | 3 (0.3%) | 9 (0.4%) |
| OCD | 19 (1.5%) | 18 (1.6%) | 37 (1.5%) |
| Eating disorders | 79 (6.1%) | 83 (7.3%) | 162 (6.6%) |
| Previous psychopathology (familiar) | 605 (46.3%) | 545 (47.8%) | 1150 (46.9%) |
| Anxiety | 312 (23.9%) | 283 (24.8%) | 595 (24.3%) |
| Depression | 400 (30.6%) | 322 (28.2%) | 722 (29.5%) |
| Bipolar Disorder | 38 (2.9%) | 45 (3.9%) | 83 (3.4%) |
| OCD | 17 (1.3%) | 29 (2.5%) | 46 (1.9%) |
| Eating disorders | 47 (3.6%) | 60 (5.3%) | 107 (4.4%) |
2. Experimental Design, Materials and Methods
The online tool – known as the COVID-ASSESS questionnaire (COVID-19 related Anxiety and StreSs in prEgnancy, poSt-partum and breaStfeeding) - comprised of a sociodemographic section, a specifically developed survey to examine concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic and three psychometric tests: NSESSS for PTSD [1], STAI-Y [2] and a survey on general psychopathology based on SCL-90 [3]. All used psychometric instruments were available and previously validated in Italian. License for their use in the present research was acquired when appropriate. The survey was conducted in Italian. All item legends were translated in English in the provided dataset, answers to open questions are in Italian.
The COVID-ASSESS questionnaire was developed by Claudia Ravaldi (psychiatrist and psychotherapist) and Alfredo Vannacci (pharmacologist and epidemiologist) and uploaded as an online survey using the Surveymonkey platform (www.surveymonkey.com). The survey was distributed via CiaoLapo Foundation, an Italian charity for perinatal loss support, using existing networks and support groups across Italy. The network of CiaoLapo Foundation comprises women and couples affected by perinatal loss, as well as numerous associations, organizations and groups dealing with healthy pregnancy and perinatal health. Data were collected during phase 1 and phase 2 of COVID-19 lockdown in Italy (that took place in the months of March, April and May 2020).
Participants voluntarily self-selected to complete the survey and they were considered eligible to complete the survey if women, over 18 and (a) currently pregnant or if (b) they gave birth after the 1st January 2019. Consent was provided at the start of the survey, once participants had read the participant information and met the eligibility criteria. Although the survey was nation-wide and we received answers from each single province of Italy, we cannot exclude a selection of respondents. In particular, women likely to respond may have been better connected to health care and may have better access to internet and electronic facilities.
The survey consisted of questions across several key areas including:
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Section (A) sociodemographic information
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Section (B)) anamnestic variables (previous losses, personal and family history of psychological disorders)
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Section (C)) birth expectations before and after COVID-19
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Section (D)) concerns regarding pandemic consequences
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Section (E)) information on post-partum and children feeding
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Section (F)) perception of media and health professionals’ information and communication on COVID-19
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Section (G)) psychometric evaluation.
Here we report a general description of the sample (sections A and B) as well as the complete COVID-ASSESS database (raw data, shared under CC BY NC 3.0) [4], openly accessible and free to use for scientific research, provided that any research proposal is shared and discussed beforehand with the members of COVID-ASSESS steering committee. Preliminary findings obtained from the dataset here reported were recently published [5,6].
Ethics Statement
Human research ethical approval to conduct the survey was received from Florence University ethics committee (Prot. n. 006897). Each participant gave their explicit consent in an online form before enrolment.
CRediT Author Statement
Claudia Ravaldi: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Resources, Writing - Original Draft, Writing - Review & Editing
Alfredo Vannacci: Methodology, Data Curation, Formal analysis, Writing - Original Draft, Writing - Review & Editing
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships which have, or could be perceived to have, influenced the work reported in this article.
Acknowledgments
The study was not funded; no researcher received grants, salary or reimbursements for the realization of the study. CiaoLapo Foundation for Healthy Pregnancy and Perinatal Loss Support provided infrastructure for the realization of the study (documents, questionnaires, material, software, web platforms, open access etc.).
Footnotes
Supplementary material associated with this article can be found in the online version at doi:10.1016/j.dib.2020.106440.
Appendix. Supplementary materials
References
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Associated Data
This section collects any data citations, data availability statements, or supplementary materials included in this article.