Study design and participants
This was a prospective case-control study on HRQoL and QoC for pregnant
and postnatal women attending the Rotunda Hospital, a tertiary maternity
hospital in Ireland, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Women were recruited
from June to July 2020 to complete three validated questionnaires; The
Short Form Health Survey (SF-12), CORE-Outcome Measure Questionnaire
(CORE-OM) and Quality from the Patient’s Perspective (QPP), as well as
provide basic anonymous demographic information. Data was anonymously
collected and was not linked to maternal medical records. All
questionnaires were completed with recruited women by a single
researcher for consistency. Women were recruited from prenatal, delivery
and postnatal wards, as well as a voluntary COVID registry. The latter
is an institutional registry of pregnant women who tested positive by
polymerase chain reaction for SARS-CoV-2, and consented to being
contacted for future research. 18 women who were SARS-CoV-2 positive
consented to complete this research project. 20 perinatal women who had
no signs, symptoms or positive SARS-CoV-2 results were recruited as
case-controls. Women were eligible to participate if they attended the
maternity unit during the COVID pandemic, if they had capacity, spoke
English and were at least 18 years old.