Women’s experience of perinatal anxiety and help-seeking in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The experience of anxiety in the perinatal period is prevalent with rates rising during the COVID-19 pandemic. While effective psychological treatments are available, help-seeking rates during the perinatal period are low. Despite the recognized importance of supporting the mental health of perinatal women, there is limited literature on the process of help-seeking for perinatal anxiety and the unique aspects of this experience influenced by the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of the present research was to better understand the experience of perinatal anxiety and to explore the process of psychological help-seeking during the COVID-19 pandemic. Pregnant (n = 8) and postpartum (n = 9) women were recruited from a hospital-based waitlist for psychological treatment in Manitoba, Canada. Qualitative interviews were conducted and analyzed according to constructivist grounded theory methodology. Participants also completed an online questionnaire, a Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (M.I.N.I.), and a mental health graph that assessed perceived mental health. All participants identified having experienced either anxiety and/or depression and sought help for mental health concerns before their current experience of perinatal anxiety. The most commonly experienced anxiety disorder was Generalized Anxiety Disorder, with an average number of three comorbid anxiety and mood disorders. The main themes emergent from the grounded theory analysis included: "Liquid terror" and other experienced symptoms of anxiety; "Here we go again": Recognition and reactions to the re-emergence of anxiety in the perinatal period; Calling in the "Troops": Social support in the context of perinatal anxiety; and "I'm going down all the lists, whom can I call, whom can I get help from?": Help-seeking for perinatal anxiety. These findings suggest that the experience of perinatal anxiety can be both disruptive and disappointing, and that help-seeking can be confusing, and distressing, even when individuals have previously engaged in help-seeking for mental health concerns. Findings also demonstrated the importance of relationships and social support during the experience of perinatal anxiety and the help-seeking process. Implications for how to better support the mental health of women in the perinatal period are discussed.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.007 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.006 | 0.005 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".