A Comparison of Different Severities of Nausea and Vomiting During Pregnancy Relative to Stress, Social Support, and Maternal Adaptation

Abstract

A cross-sectional and comparative research design with convenience sampling was used to recruit pregnant women from prenatal clinics in southern Taiwan between 2002 and 2003 to examine the differences in perceived stress, social support, and maternal psychosocial adaptation among women with different severities (mild or less than mild, moderate, and severe) of nausea and vomiting during pregnancy. A total of 150 pregnant women participated in this study. One-way analysis of variance indicated that perceived stress was significantly different among the 3 groups. The least significant difference post-hoc test revealed that pregnant women with mild nausea and vomiting had significantly lower stress than did pregnant women with severe nausea and vomiting. The severity of nausea and vomiting was significantly associated with the Prenatal Self Evaluation Questionnaire subscales for "acceptance of pregnancy" and "fear of helplessness and loss of control in labor." Social support and maternal psychosocial adaptation were not significantly different among these three groups. The degree of perceived stress and maternal psychosocial adaptation may be related to the severity of nausea and vomiting during pregnancy.

Relationships Between Leptin, hCG, Cortisol, and Psychosocial Stress and Nausea and Vomiting Throughout Pregnancy

“…Our results are consistent with the findings of previous reports showing that stress is independently associated with INVR scores (Attard et al, 2002;Buckwalter & Simpson, 2002;Chou et al, 2008;Kuo et al, 2007). In this study, we found no relationship between stress and cortisol in contrast to earlier findings by others such as Chin (1999), O'Connor et al (2000), and Whelan et al (2002).…”

“…There is good evidence of the reliability and validity of the English-language INVR in perinatal research (Zhou et al, 1999). The Cronbach's a for internal consistency of the Chinese INVR was .90-.94 (Chou, Avant, Kuo, & Cheng, 2005;Kuo et al, 2007). The test-retest reliability was .97 (n ¼ 30; Chou, Avant, et al, 2005).…”

Nausea and vomiting of pregnancy: what about quality of life?

“…7,8 Nevertheless, research has shown that NVP have a significant impact on family life as well as the ability to perform usual daily activities, social functioning, stress level, and intent to have other children. 7,9,10 NVP can even lead in some cases to depressive feelings and elective termination of pregnancy. [10][11][12] To date, few studies have focused on the association between NVP and health-related QOL using validated QOL instruments.…”

Acceptance of Pregnancy

“…Pregnancy for her mostly was a requisite for the desired baby. In another study (Kuo et al, 2007) the severity of nausea and vomiting was significantly associated with the Acceptance of Pregnancy scale from the Chinese translated Lederman Prenatal Self-Evaluation Questionnaire.…”

“…248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 The degree of discomfort experienced during pregnancy can be another indicator of a woman's acceptance of the pregnancy. The prevalence of pregnancy symptoms has been associated with levels of anxiety (Green, 1973;Lubin, Gardener, & Roth, 1975) and stress (Georgas, Giakonmaki, Koumandakis, & Kaskarelis, 1984), the desire for pregnancy (Klein, Potter, & Dyk, 1950), the woman's emotional health (Grossman, Eichler, & Winickoff, 1980), the incidence of personality problems and the overall reaction to pregnancy (Shereshefsky & Yarrow, 1973), and the acceptance of pregnancy (Kuo, Wang, Tseng, Jian, & Chou, 2007). Discomfort can spoil the pleasure of being pregnant, although it need not.…”