Motherhood and COVID-19: a Digital Psychoeducational Booklet for the Coping with the Pandemic Stressors

Abstract

During the pandemic of COVID-19, the Brazilian Health Ministry declared that 2-week postnatal women are a high-risk population that demands special assistance. Considering that women at the postnatal period are more susceptible to anxiety and stress symptoms, our objective is to present a digital psychoeducational booklet analyzing its validity to help this target population to cope with the stress from the new coronavirus crisis. Based on the dispositional coping theory and positive psychology, this proposal was developed as a digital booklet to promote the maternal mental health and well-being based on informational and psychoeducational approaches. Information about the COVID-19, as well as coping strategies and positive practices, were presented to provide support for the coping with pandemic stressors. To validate the booklet, 12 women answered a Google Form via WhatsApp that included a free and informed consent form, a general data protocol, and a questionnaire with validity criteria (clarity of written, practical pertinence, theoretical relevance, and presentation). Content validity coefficients (CVC) were calculated for all criteria. The participants were on average 30 years old (A.V.=23-43), and half of them had a high school degree; 50% of them self-declared white and 25% black, and 2 of them declared themselves brown and 1 yellow. All CVC were ≥ 0.96. These findings confirmed that our booklet can be considered a viable, useful, and efficient tool to help puerperium women during the pandemic, providing support for a resilient coping face to this new and critical moment.

Keywords: Booklet; COVID-19; Coping; Health education; Postpartum period; Stress.