Cited by 195Maternal Mental Health During Pregnancy and PostpartumCOVID-19 and Mental HealthCOVID-19 Impact on Reproduction

COVID-19 and mental health during pregnancy: The importance of cognitive appraisal and social support

Open access
Khoury, Jennifer E., Atkinson, Leslie, Bennett, Teresa, Jack, Susan M., Gonzalez, Andrea·2021·Journal of Affective Disorders

Abstract

Background Pregnancy is a period of elevated risk for mental health difficulties, which are likely exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aims to understand the impact of COVID-19 on mental health and identify risk and protective factors during pregnancy.Methods Participants were 303 pregnant individuals from Ontario, Canada. Depression, anxiety and insomnia were measured using validated questionnaires. COVID-related experiences (i.e., financial difficulties, relationship conflict, social isolation) were assessed in relation to mental health. Social support and cognitive appraisal of the pandemic were examined as protective factors.Results 57% of the sample reported clinically elevated depression, >30% reported elevated worries, and 19% reported elevated insomnia. Depression (t = 25.14, p < .0001) and anxiety (t = 17.21, p < .0001) levels were higher than non-COVID pregnant samples. Social isolation, financial trouble, relationship difficulties and threat of COVID-19 were associated with mental health. Social support (r range -.24 to -.38, p <.01) was associated with lower mental health problems and negative cognitive appraisal (r range .20 to .33, p <.01) was linked to more mental health problems. Furthermore, social support and cognitive appraisal interacted (β = -.92, SE = .41, p < .05), such that higher social support acted as a protective factor, particularly for those who appraise the impact of COVID-19 to be more negative.Conclusions Findings underscore the need to address the high rates of mental health during pregnancy and outline potential targets (cognitive appraisal and social support) to protect pregnant people from experiencing mental health problems during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.jad.2021.01.027

Cites

74 of 74 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Social support may be a vital protective factor for mental health across demographics.

    “Social support, which includes support in developing and maintaining personal, family, and social relationships, may also be a vital protective factor for mental health across demographics [196–199].”

    From Brain structural and functional outcomes in the offspring of women experiencing psychological distress during pregnancy (2024) · cites this paper as [197]

    The Results section finds that higher social support was associated with fewer mental health symptoms among pregnant participants who appraised COVID-19 negatively. The Introduction also cites evidence concerning non-pregnant individuals, but this paper does not establish a protective effect across demographics; its own finding is conditional and population-specific. (LLM, conf=0.84)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

2 of the 76 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 1

  1. Lazarus RS Stress Folkman S. Appraisal and Coping 1984 N.Y: Springer

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Khoury, J. E., Atkinson, L., Bennett, T., Jack, S. M., & Gonzalez, A.
Affiliations
  • McMaster University (CA)
  • Toronto Metropolitan University (CA)
Corresponding author
Khoury, Jennifer E.
Venue
Journal of Affective Disorders
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2021-03
Volume
282
Pages
1161-1169
ISSN
0165-0327 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W3120171561
Cited by
195
References
76
Citations by year
2026: 9 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 23 · 2023: 48 · 2022: 56 · 2021: 46 · 2020: 1
FWCI
37.49
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Journal of Affective Disorders (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders
Canadian Institutes of Health Research (20011917)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Maternal Mental Health During Pregnancy and Postpartum
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › COVID-19 and Mental Health
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Obstetrics and Gynecology › COVID-19 Impact on Reproduction
Keywords
COVID-19 pandemic, pregnancy, maternal mental health, depression, anxiety, insomnia, cognitive appraisal, social support, social isolation, financial hardship, relationship conflict, protective factors, risk factors
MeSH terms
COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, Anxiety, Cognition, Depression, Female, Humans, Mental Health, Ontario, Pregnancy, Social Support, Pandemics

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review