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. 2024 Aug 23;16(8):e67645.
doi: 10.7759/cureus.67645. eCollection 2024 Aug.

Maternal Health Experiences, Depression, and Anxiety Among Refugees and Displaced Persons in Iraq: A Cross-Sectional Study

Hamdia Mirkhan Ahmed  1   2 , Salih Ahmed Abdulla  3 , Namir Al-Tawil  4 , Kathryn Mishkin  5
Affiliations

Maternal Health Experiences, Depression, and Anxiety Among Refugees and Displaced Persons in Iraq: A Cross-Sectional Study

Hamdia Mirkhan Ahmed et al. Cureus. .

Abstract

Background and objectives: Improving maternal health is one of the World Health Organization's (WHO) key priorities, grounded in a human rights approach and linked to efforts on universal health coverage. This study aimed to assess maternal health experiences among refugees and displaced women in Iraq during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was done on 1321 women of reproductive age living in four camps supervised by the Barzani Foundation Charity in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq from June to August 2021. Researchers developed a questionnaire, and the data was collected by four staff members working in the camps through direct interviews with women. The World Health Organization Brief (WHOQOL-BREF), generalized anxiety disorder seven-item (GAD-7), and Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) scales were used to measure quality of life (QoL), anxiety, and depression. The frequency, percentage, percentile, and the Chi-square test were used for data analysis.

Results: The women's mean age (SD) was 31.9 (±7.7) years. Around two-thirds of women attended the camp's healthcare facilities, and 16.4% attended the private facilities. Women mentioned the following as barriers to seeking health services: COVID-19 (387/29.3%), transportation (351/26.6%), lack of someone watching children (300/22.7%), and language (242/18.3%). The rate of high-level QoL among currently pregnant women (8/8.7%) was significantly (p = 0.002) less than the rate among nonpregnant women (297/24.2%). More than half (734/55.6%) of the women had mild depression, 247/18.7% had major depression, and 50/3.8% had severe major depression. Regarding anxiety, 580/43.9% had minimal anxiety, 467/35.4% had mild anxiety, 173/13.1% had moderate anxiety, and only 101/7.6% had severe anxiety.

Conclusions: Refugees and internal displaced women in Iraq have barriers to seeking maternal healthcare. They suffer from low QoL, depression, and anxiety. Factors affecting the quality and accessibility of maternal healthcare in the camps should be studied. Health policymakers have to consider its improvement.

Keywords: anxiety; depression; idp; iraq; maternal care; quality of life; refugee; syria.

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Conflict of interest statement

Human subjects: Consent was obtained or waived by all participants in this study. Ethics Committee of College of Health Sciences, Hawler Medical University issued approval Sc.E.C.4. The Scientific and Ethics Committee of the College of Health Sciences, Hawler Medical University approved the study proposal. Informed verbal consent was obtained from the study sample, and participants were free to withdraw from the study during data collection. . Animal subjects: All authors have confirmed that this study did not involve animal subjects or tissue. Conflicts of interest: In compliance with the ICMJE uniform disclosure form, all authors declare the following: Payment/services info: All authors have declared that no financial support was received from any organization for the submitted work. Financial relationships: All authors have declared that they have no financial relationships at present or within the previous three years with any organizations that might have an interest in the submitted work. Other relationships: All authors have declared that there are no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work.

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