Telehealth relaxation, is it really can decrease the level of anxiety for pregnant women during the pandemic COVID-19?

Abstract

Coronavirus Disease 19 (COVID-19) pandemic has had a significant impact on human survival. As an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, WHO recommends temporarily stopping activities that have the potential to cause crowds. Although pregnancy is generally believed to be an exciting time for most women, some women experience various negative emotions during pregnancy that cause anxiety and depression. Increased symptoms of depression and anxiety can harm pregnant women and developing fetuses. The current COVID-19 pandemic is a stressor with potentially far-reaching consequences for pregnancy and its later phases. This study aims to determine the effect of relaxation through telehealth on the anxiety of pregnant women during the COVID-19 pandemic. The sampling technique used a purposive sampling of 20 pregnant women as the subject. The instruments used in this study were a zoom application for the implementation of telehealth relaxation and an anxiety questionnaire from the Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HARS). The analysis used the Wilcoxon test. The bivariate analysis of the pre-test and post-test values showed p-value = 0.000 (p < 0.05). There is a significant effect of telehealth relaxation on the anxiety of pregnant women.