Study design and participants

The Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study (MoBa)17 is an ongoing nationwide cohort study in which 95 000 pregnant women and 75 000 partners were recruited between 1999 and 2008. Parents and children have been followed with questionnaires and registry linkages with the aim to understand causes of disease.

Since March 2020, MoBa parents, now aged 30–65 years, have been invited to answer short mobile-phone questionnaires every 14 days regarding symptoms related to COVID-19, chronic illnesses, job situation, life satisfaction and more. About 149 000 parents, who were still active MoBa participants, were invited to answer the repeated surveys, in this paper referred to as rounds. We used questionnaire rounds 2 and 3 (April 2020) and 14 and 15 (September/October 2020), including questions on both work situation and life satisfaction. Data from the various rounds were linked to previous MoBa data to obtain information on educational level and previously reported levels of life satisfaction. The participation rates were 74%, 68%, 58% and 58%, for rounds 2, 3, 14 and 15, respectively (figure 1).

Flow chart of MoBa participants responding to four questionnaires in April, September and October 2020. MoBa, The Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study.