Primary Health Care during the COVID-19 pandemic in Fortaleza, Brazil: associated factors and pattern of use by mothers and children up to 18 months of age

• Autor(a) principal: Correia,Luciano Lima
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Outros Autores: Machado,Márcia Maria Tavares, Araújo,David Augusto Batista Sá, Gomes,Yuri Valentim Carneiro, Pinheiro,Maria Suelly Nogueira, Rocha,Hermano Alexandre Lima, Nogueira,Denise Lima, Sousa,Geziel dos Santos de, Farias-Antuñez,Simone, Castro,Márcia Caldas
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Revista brasileira de epidemiologia (Online)
• Texto Completo: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1415-790X2022000100433
• topic: Primary health care; Maternal and child health; Cohort study; Epidemiologic factors; COVID-19

ABSTRACT Objective: To analyze the delay or failure to seek primary health care by the mother-child dyads during the COVID-19 pandemic, a practice that has a high potential to increase maternal and child morbidity and mortality. Methods: Data from three survey rounds of the Iracema-COVID cohort study, collected 6, 12, and 18 months after birth, showed the patterns of postpartum attendance to primary health care consultation of the mother-child dyad. Crude and adjusted multinomial logistic regressions with robust variance were used to assess factors associated with nonattendance. Results: Among the 314 cohort mothers, 25% did not attend any primary health care consultation during the 18-months postpartum, while 30% of the mothers did all three. Regarding the child, 75% had regular primary health care consultations in all three survey rounds, while 4% did not attend any in their first 18 months of life. By the end of the first COVID-19 wave, the proportion of mother and child who attended the consultations had fallen by 23 and 18%, respectively. The main factors associated with nonattendance were mothers aged below 25 years, and mothers with more than one child. Conclusion: An important delay or nonattendance to primary health care consultation by the mother-child dyad was observed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Such practice, with a high potential to increase maternal and child morbidity and mortality, was particularly frequent among younger mothers and those with more than one child.