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COVID-19 pandemic hits differently: examining its consequences for women’s livelihoods and healthcare access – a cross-sectional study in Kinshasa DRC
OBJECTIVES: The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic led to multiple preventive actions as primary interventions to contain the spread of the virus. Globally, countries are facing enormous challenges with consequences for use of social, economic and health services. The Democratic Republic of Congo (D...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BMJ Publishing Group
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10496687/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37678942 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2023-072869 |
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author | Nkweleko Fankam, Falone Ugarte, William Akilimali, Pierre Ewane Etah, Junior Åkerman, Eva |
author_facet | Nkweleko Fankam, Falone Ugarte, William Akilimali, Pierre Ewane Etah, Junior Åkerman, Eva |
author_sort | Nkweleko Fankam, Falone |
collection | PubMed |
description | OBJECTIVES: The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic led to multiple preventive actions as primary interventions to contain the spread of the virus. Globally, countries are facing enormous challenges with consequences for use of social, economic and health services. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was among the African countries implementing strict lockdown at the start of the pandemic, resulting in shortages and decreased access to services. The adverse effects of the pandemic had unpleasant consequences for the country. This study aimed to examine the association between COVID-19 pandemic-related factors, sociodemographic factors, and the need to visit healthcare facilities, including family planning services, among women aged 15–49 years in the DRC. METHODS: We conducted a secondary analysis of a performance monitoring for action (PMA) cross-sectional COVID-19 phone survey in Kinshasa, DRC, which had a response rate of 74.7%. In total, 1325 randomly selected women aged 15–49 years from the Kinshasa province who had previously participated in the PMA baseline survey participated in the survey. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regressions were used to assess associations. RESULTS: The COVID-19 pandemic and related factors affected 92% of women in the Kinshasa province socioeconomically. A majority were highly economically dependent on their partner or some other sources for their basic needs to be met, and even more worried about the future impact of the pandemic on their household finances. Over 50% of women did not attempt visiting a health service, with some of the top reasons being fear of being infected with COVID-19 and not being able to afford services. We found a significant association between age groups and contraceptive use. The need for and use of contraceptives was higher among women aged 25–34 years than those aged 15–24 or 35–49 years. CONCLUSION: Effective social/economic support to women and girls during pandemics and in crises is essential as it can have lasting beneficial effects on many domains of their lives, including their ability to access health services and the contraceptives of their choice. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10496687 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | BMJ Publishing Group |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-104966872023-09-13 COVID-19 pandemic hits differently: examining its consequences for women’s livelihoods and healthcare access – a cross-sectional study in Kinshasa DRC Nkweleko Fankam, Falone Ugarte, William Akilimali, Pierre Ewane Etah, Junior Åkerman, Eva BMJ Open Global Health OBJECTIVES: The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic led to multiple preventive actions as primary interventions to contain the spread of the virus. Globally, countries are facing enormous challenges with consequences for use of social, economic and health services. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was among the African countries implementing strict lockdown at the start of the pandemic, resulting in shortages and decreased access to services. The adverse effects of the pandemic had unpleasant consequences for the country. This study aimed to examine the association between COVID-19 pandemic-related factors, sociodemographic factors, and the need to visit healthcare facilities, including family planning services, among women aged 15–49 years in the DRC. METHODS: We conducted a secondary analysis of a performance monitoring for action (PMA) cross-sectional COVID-19 phone survey in Kinshasa, DRC, which had a response rate of 74.7%. In total, 1325 randomly selected women aged 15–49 years from the Kinshasa province who had previously participated in the PMA baseline survey participated in the survey. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regressions were used to assess associations. RESULTS: The COVID-19 pandemic and related factors affected 92% of women in the Kinshasa province socioeconomically. A majority were highly economically dependent on their partner or some other sources for their basic needs to be met, and even more worried about the future impact of the pandemic on their household finances. Over 50% of women did not attempt visiting a health service, with some of the top reasons being fear of being infected with COVID-19 and not being able to afford services. We found a significant association between age groups and contraceptive use. The need for and use of contraceptives was higher among women aged 25–34 years than those aged 15–24 or 35–49 years. CONCLUSION: Effective social/economic support to women and girls during pandemics and in crises is essential as it can have lasting beneficial effects on many domains of their lives, including their ability to access health services and the contraceptives of their choice. BMJ Publishing Group 2023-09-07 /pmc/articles/PMC10496687/ /pubmed/37678942 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2023-072869 Text en © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2023. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Global Health Nkweleko Fankam, Falone Ugarte, William Akilimali, Pierre Ewane Etah, Junior Åkerman, Eva COVID-19 pandemic hits differently: examining its consequences for women’s livelihoods and healthcare access – a cross-sectional study in Kinshasa DRC |
title | COVID-19 pandemic hits differently: examining its consequences for women’s livelihoods and healthcare access – a cross-sectional study in Kinshasa DRC |
title_full | COVID-19 pandemic hits differently: examining its consequences for women’s livelihoods and healthcare access – a cross-sectional study in Kinshasa DRC |
title_fullStr | COVID-19 pandemic hits differently: examining its consequences for women’s livelihoods and healthcare access – a cross-sectional study in Kinshasa DRC |
title_full_unstemmed | COVID-19 pandemic hits differently: examining its consequences for women’s livelihoods and healthcare access – a cross-sectional study in Kinshasa DRC |
title_short | COVID-19 pandemic hits differently: examining its consequences for women’s livelihoods and healthcare access – a cross-sectional study in Kinshasa DRC |
title_sort | covid-19 pandemic hits differently: examining its consequences for women’s livelihoods and healthcare access – a cross-sectional study in kinshasa drc |
topic | Global Health |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10496687/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37678942 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2023-072869 |
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