Characteristics Associated with Prenatal Distress in Turkish Women: A Cross-sectional Study

Recent studies show that more research are needed on characteristics associated with prenatal distress. It was therefore aimed to examine the level of prenatal distress in Turkish pregnant women and its relationship with the women’s personal and obstetric characteristics. 

This was a cross-sectional study. A total of 221 pregnant women who admitted for prenatal care between 15th April and 1st June 2016 were recruited for this study. Nineteen individuals declined to participate; accordingly, 202 individuals with uncomplicated pregnancy in all trimesters were included in the study. Data were collected using a demographic-obstetric questionnaire and the Tilburg Pregnancy Distress Scale. Student’s t-test, and variance analysis were used to analyze the data. 

More than one third of the pregnant women (37.6%) were found to experience prenatal distress. Women with unplanned pregnancies (18.33±6.07) (p <0.05) had a risk of prenatal distress. Also, women whose husbands were primary school graduates (16.66±6.14) (p>0.05) and who had a low level of income (16.61±5.92) (p>0.05) were still at risk for prenatal distress, as their mean scores were above the distress scale cut-off point. 

The results emphasize that nurses and midwives may not contribute to the reduction of distress levels during pregnancy in the hospital settings. For this reason, a referral system seems to be the best solution to follow-up the healthy pregnant women in primary care settings and transfer them to the secondary care settings, when necessary.