(862) Early pregnancy resilience factors before versus during COVID19 pandemic

Friday, February 10, 2023

10:30 AM – 12:00 PM

Objective: Resilience—or the ability to recover from difficulties quickly—has been associated with mental health outcomes. Given the social, physical and mental health toll of the COVID-19 pandemic, we sought to understand if that would contribute to population-level deterioration in resilience.

Study Design: This is a secondary analysis of a prospective cohort of nulliparous parturients from a single, high volume center. Before 20 weeks gestation, participants completed baseline assessments of resilience, including dispositional optimism (DO), mindfulness, & proactive coping. For this analysis, participants recruited before the COVID-19 pandemic were compared to those recruited during the pandemic. The primary outcome was DO, assessed with the validated Revised Life Orientation Test. Secondary outcomes included mindfulness and proactive coping assessments. Bivariable analyses were completed. Multivariable linear regression compared resilience scores, controlling for confounders determined a priori from the literature.

Results: Of the 300 participants, 152 (50.7%) were recruited prior to the pandemic. Demographic and pregnancy characteristics differed between groups (Table 1). There were no significant differences in any of the resilience characteristics before versus during the pandemic in bivariable analyses. There was also no difference in any resilience characteristics before vs. during-pandemic in multivariable analyses after controlling for confounders.

Conclusion: In this cohort, there were no differences in early pregnancy resilience characteristics before versus during the COVID-19 pandemic. This affirms the supposition that without targeted intervention, resilience measures are stable metrics, even in the setting of stressful life events.

Primary & Presenting Author(s)

Nina K. Ayala, MD
Attending Physician
Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University
Providence, Rhode Island, United States

Coauthor(s)

Audra Fain, BS (she/her/hers)
Medical Student
Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University
Providence, Rhode Island, United States
Tess E.K Cersonsky, BS (she/her/hers)
Medical Student
Alpert Medical School of Brown University
Providence, Rhode Island, United States
Emily S. Miller, MD, MPH (she/her/hers)
Director, Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine
Alpert Medical School of Brown University and Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island
Providence, Rhode Island, United States
Erika F. Werner, MD
Associate Professor, MFM Division Director
Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University
Providence, Rhode Island, United States
Adam K. Lewkowitz, MD, MPHS
Assistant Professor
Alpert Medical School of Brown University and Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island
Providence, Rhode Island, United States