EFFECTIVENESS OF POSITIVE THINKING TRAINING ON HEALTH ANXIETY AND FEAR OF CHILDBIRTH IN PRIMIPAROUS PREGNANT WOMEN: A SEMI-EXPERIMENTAL STUDY

Primiparous pregnant women experience high levels of health anxiety and fear of childbirth. It is crucial to implement interventions aimed at reducing health anxiety and fear of childbirth in these women. Therefore, this study was conducted with the aim of determining the effectiveness of positive thinking training on health anxiety and fear of childbirth in primiparous pregnant women.

This study was a semi-experimental research with a pre-test and post-test design, including a control group. The study population consisted of all pregnant women referred to medical centers in Qom for pregnancy care between March 2022 and May 2023. Forty women were selected through convenience sampling and then randomly divided into two groups: experimental and control, each consisting of 20 individuals. The experimental group underwent eight 90-minute sessions of Serini and Sayadi's positive thinking training package, while the control group did not receive any training during this time. Salkovskis and Warwick's health anxiety questionnaires and Harman's childbirth attitudes questionnaire were used for data collection. The data was analyzed using the covariance analysis test in SPSS software version 26.

The study results demonstrated that positive thinking training had a significant impact on health anxiety (F=58.94; P<0.001) and fear of childbirth (F=96.9; P<0/003) in primiparous pregnant women. The mean scores of health anxiety and fear of childbirth among primiparous pregnant women who received positive thinking training significantly decreased in the post-test compared to the pre-test (P<0.001).

The research results show that training in positive thinking has been effective in reducing health anxiety and fear of childbirth in first-time pregnant women. Therefore, it is essential to implement positive thinking training interventions to decrease psychological issues in pregnant women, particularly those who are expecting their first child and dealing with fear of childbirth and health anxiety.