The Effect of Telephone Counseling on COVID-19-related Health Anxiety in Pregnant Women: A randomized controlled trial

Background: This study aimed to investigate the effect of telephone counseling on COVID-19-related health anxiety in pregnant women. Methods: The present research was a randomized controlled trial. Eighty pregnant women were randomly selected and assigned to the control and intervention groups. The intervention group received telephone counseling for one month. Health anxiety was assessed using a health anxiety questionnaire. One month following the intervention, the mean score of health anxiety showed a statistically significant difference between the control and intervention groups (P <0.001). Results: The mean score of health anxiety was 23.57 ± 3.55 in the intervention group, which was significantly lower than the mean health anxiety score of the control group (30.1 ± 5.93). In addition, there was a statistically significant difference between the mean health anxiety scores before and after telephone counseling in the intervention group (P <0.001). Conclusion: Based on the findings of this study, telephone counseling can play a major role in reducing COVID-19-related health anxiety in pregnant women. So, this method can be utilized to prevent mothers’ physical and psychological problems during the COVID-19 outbreak. Trial registration This study was registered in the Iranian Registry of Clinical Trials (IRCT) with the code “IRCT20220531055038N1” on 13/06/2022.