COVID-19 and sexual reproductive health service utilisation among women of reproductive age in Zambia

ABSTRACT

Zambia has made improvements in addressing maternal and child health in the past two decades. The COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, which could put a strain on the healthcare systems and alter how access to sexual and reproductive health services is provided, could, however, have a negative impact on the gains. Data from a recent nationally representative COVID-19 survey, conducted in April 2021, was used to examine the utilisation of antenatal care services among pregnant women during the pandemic in Zambia. Overall, 10 per cent (95% CI: 8.0–11.4) of pregnant women missed antenatal care during the COVID-19 period, signifying an increase when compared to the time before the outbreak of COVID-19. Age of a woman and level of education were associated with the risk of missing antenatal care services. The study highlights the need to improve communication to women on availability and access to sexual reproductive health services to stimulate demand and use among women during this period.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• sexual reproductive health
• women
• antenatal care
• Zambia

Acknowledgments

This work was carried out under the COVID-19 Africa Rapid grant Fund supported under the auspices of the Science Granting Councils Initiative in Sub-Saharan Africa (SGCI) and administered by South Africa’s National Research Foundation in collaboration with Canada’s International Development Research Center (IDRC), THE Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), South Africa’s Department of Science and Innovation (DSI), the Fons de Recherche due Quebec (FRQ), the United Kingdom’s Department of International Development (DFID), United Kingdom Research and Innovation (UKRI) through the Newton Fund, and the SGCI participating councils across 15 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. It is made possible by the Demography and Population Studies Programme of the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa through its conference on population and reproductive health dynamics under Covid-19 in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Authors would also like to express their gratitude to the Zambia Statistics Agency for authorising the use of the 2021 COVID-19 Socio-economic Impact Assessment Survey datasets and for providing the researchers with the survey report.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

Authors declare no competing interest.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Author contributions

MP developed the concept for this study and wrote the background section. MP and SS performed data analysis and wrote the discussion and data interpretation text for the manuscript. HN prepared the methodology. CO performed overall review and editing of the manuscript for intellectual content. All authors have read and approved the final version of this manuscript.

Availability of data and materials

Data used this study are available upon request from Zambia Statistics Agency (https://www.zamstats.gov.zm/). Data analysis files can be provided upon request to the corresponding author ([email protected])

Additional information

Funding

No funding was received.