Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2021 Aug 23;21(1):860.
doi: 10.1186/s12913-021-06878-3.

Covid-19 pandemic impact on maternal and child health services access in Nampula, Mozambique: a mixed methods research

Paulo Henrique das Neves Martins Pires  1 , Cynthia Macaringue  2 , Ahmed Abdirazak  2 , Jaibo Rassul Mucufo  2 , Martins Abudo Mupueleque  3 , David Zakus  4 , Ronald Siemens  5 , Celso Fernando Belo  2
Affiliations
Review

Covid-19 pandemic impact on maternal and child health services access in Nampula, Mozambique: a mixed methods research

Paulo Henrique das Neves Martins Pires et al. BMC Health Serv Res. .

Abstract

Background: The Covid-19 pandemic has so far infected more than 30 million people in the world, having major impact on global health with collateral damage. In Mozambique, a public state of emergency was declared at the end of March 2020. This has limited people's movements and reduced public services, leading to a decrease in the number of people accessing health care facilities. An implementation research project, The Alert Community for a Prepared Hospital, has been promoting access to maternal and child health care, in Natikiri, Nampula, for the last four years. Nampula has the second highest incidence of Covid-19. The purpose of this study is to assess the impact of Covid-19 pandemic Government restrictions on access to maternal and child healthcare services. We compared health centres in Nampula city with healthcare centres in our research catchment area. We wanted to see if our previous research interventions have led to a more resilient response from the community.

Methods: Mixed-methods research, descriptive, cross-sectional, retrospective, using a review of patient visit documentation. We compared maternal and child health care unit statistical indicators from March-May 2019 to the same time-period in 2020. We tested for significant changes in access to maternal and child health services, using KrushKall Wallis, One-way Anova and mean and standard deviation tests. We compared interviews with health professionals, traditional birth attendants and patients in the two areas. We gathered data from a comparable city health centre and the main city referral hospital. The Marrere health centre and Marrere General Hospital were the two Alert Community for a Prepared Hospital intervention sites.

Results: Comparing 2019 quantitative maternal health services access indicators with those from 2020, showed decreases in most important indicators: family planning visits and elective C-sections dropped 28%; first antenatal visit occurring in the first trimester dropped 26%; hospital deliveries dropped a statistically significant 4% (p = 0.046), while home deliveries rose 74%; children vaccinated down 20%.

Conclusion: Our results demonstrated the negative collateral effects of Covid-19 pandemic Government restrictions, on access to maternal and child healthcare services, and highlighted the need to improve the health information system in Mozambique.

Keywords: Adolescent health; Children health; Covid-19; Health services access; Maternal health; Mozambique; Nampula.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare they have no competing interests.

References

    1. 360 GRN Revolution. Covid-19, Actualização. Worldometer. 28 Agosto 2020.
    1. WHO. Pulse survey on continuity of essential health services during the Covid-19 pandemic. Interim report. World Health Organization. Geneva. 27 August 2020.
    1. Melo RB, Tavares NT, Duarte R. Covid-19 and the invisible damage. Acta Med Port 2020 xxx;33(AOP):xxx-xxx ▪ 10.20344/amp.13911. - PubMed
    1. Poudel A. A 200 percent increase in maternal mortality since the lockdown began. The Kathmandu May. 2020;27.
    1. Kringos D, Carinci F, Barbazza E, Bos V, Gilmore K, Groene O, Gulácsi L, Ivankovic D, Jansen T, Johnsen SP, de Lusignan S, Mainz J, Nuti S, Klazinga N, on behalf of the HealthPros Network. Baji P, Brito Fernandes O, Kara P, Larrain N, Meza B, Murante A, Pentek M, Poldrugovac M, Wang S, Willmington C, Yang Y. Managing COVID-19 within and across health systems: why we need performance intelligence to coordinate a global response. Kringos et al Health Research Policy and Systems. 2020;18(1):80. doi: 10.1186/s12961-020-00593-x. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Grants and funding