ArticleBMJ global health2023
The COVID-19 pandemic and disruptions to maternal and child health services in public primary care Malaysia: a retrospective time-series analysis.
Article in BMJ global health, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 16 citations in OpenAlex.
- From pandemic to progress: maternal health resilience in the post COVID-19 era in Tamil Nadu, India.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2026Article
- Community perspectives on access to maternal health services during the COVID-19 pandemic in rural Western Kenya: a qualitative study.BMC health services research · 2025Article
- The association between china's primary health care reform and inequalities in primary care utilisation and maternal mortality: a quasi-experimental longitudinal study from 2010 to 2019.International journal for equity in health · 2025Article
- The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on urban-rural outpatient primary care utilisation in Malaysia: a retrospective time series and spatiotemporal analysis.International journal for equity in health · 2025Article
- Impact of COVID-19 on the utilisation of maternal and child health services in Peru at national and subnational levels: An interrupted time series analysis.Journal of global health · 2024Article
- Measuring spatial inequalities in maternal and child mortalities in Pakistan: evidence from geographically weighted regression.BMC public health · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionThe COVID-19 pandemic has posed significant challenges to healthcare systems worldwide. Maintaining essential health services, including maternal and child health (MCH), while addressing the pandemic is an enormous task. This study aimed to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the utilisation of MCH services in Malaysian public primary care.
methodsA retrospective analysis was conducted using national administrative data from 1124 public primary care clinics. Eight indicators were selected to measure service utilisation covering antenatal, postnatal, women's health, child health, and immunisation services. Interrupted time-series analysis was used to evaluate changes in levels and trends of indicators during four different periods: pre-pandemic (January 2019-February 2020), during pandemic and first lockdown (March-May 2020), after the first lockdown was lifted (June-December 2020) and after the second lockdown was implemented (January-June 2021).
resultsMost indicators showed no significant trend in monthly utilisation prior to the pandemic. The onset of the pandemic and first lockdown implementation were associated with significant decreasing trends in child health (-19.23%), women's health (-10.12%), antenatal care (-8.10%), contraception (-6.50%), postnatal care (-4.85%) and postnatal care 1-week (-3.52%) indicators. These indicators showed varying degrees of recovery after the first lockdown was lifted. The implementation of the second lockdown caused transient reduction ranging from -11.29% to -25.92% in women's health, contraception, child and two postnatal indicators, but no sustained reducing trend was seen afterwards. Two immunisation indicators appeared unaffected throughout the study period.
conclusionThe COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted MCH services utilisation in Malaysia. While most MCH services were negatively affected by the lockdown implementation with varying degrees of recovery, infant immunisation showed resilience throughout. This highlights the need for a targeted preparedness plan to ensure the resilience of MCH services in future crises.
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