Identifying Patterns of Symptom Distress in Pregnant Women: A Pilot Study

Abstract

During pregnancy, a woman’s enlarged uterus and the developing fetus lead to symptom distress; in turn, physical and psychological aspects of symptom distress are often associated with adverse prenatal and birth outcomes. This study aimed to identify the trends in the trajectory of these symptoms. This longitudinal study recruited 95 pregnant women, with a mean age of 32 years, from the prenatal wards of two teaching hospitals in northern Taiwan. Symptom distress was measured by a 22-item scale related to pregnancy-induced symptoms. The follow-up measurements began during the first trimester and were taken every two to four weeks until childbirth. More than half of the pregnant women experienced symptom distress manifested in a pattern depicted to be “Decreased then Increased” (56.8%). Other noticeable patterns were “Continuously Increased” (28.4%), “Increased then Decreased” (10.5%) and “Continuously Decreased” (4.2%), respectively. It is worth noting that most pregnant women recorded a transit and increase in their symptom distress, revealed by their total scores, at the second trimester (mean 22.02 weeks) of pregnancy. The participants’ major pregnancy-related distress symptoms were physical and included fatigue, frequent urination, lower back pain, and difficulty sleeping. The mean scores for individual symptoms ranged from 2.32 to 3.61 and were below the “moderately distressful” level. This study provides evidence that could be used to predict women’s pregnancy-related symptom distress and help healthcare providers implement timely interventions to improve prenatal care.

Evidence‐based trends and association between symptom disturbance and physical activity among pregnant women: A longitudinal study

“…Significant differences in physical symptoms were observed across the three trimesters, and higher physical SD scores were recorded at all time points than psychological SD scores, with no significant differences in psychological symptoms across the trimesters. The SD trajectories observed in our study were consistent with those reported previously (Lee et al, 2021). In addition, we found that total PA among pregnant women in our study cohort exhibited a downward trend, but the opposite trend was observed for SD.…”

“…Our study has several strengths. Our study recruited a larger sample of pregnant women than previous studies (Beebe et al, 2017; Lee et al, 2021) and explored the changes in SD and PA and their correlations during pregnancy, following pregnant women from the first through the third trimester. To our knowledge, most studies of SD and PA among pregnant women assess either PA alone or a single symptom and are typically limited to a single trimester (Caputo et al, 2019; Liu et al, 2020; Sinclair et al, 2019), with no prior studies providing a comprehensive overview of changes over time or the relationships between physical and psychological SD and PA.…”

“…Pregnancy is associated with various physiological changes, including hormonal and anatomical changes, that support the continued enlargement of the uterus and fetus and can result in increasingly frequent feelings of extreme distress and symptom disturbance (SD; Lee et al, 2021). Symptoms experienced during pregnancy can include both physical symptoms, such as nausea, vomiting, pelvic pain, back pain, fatigue, and difficulty sleeping, and psychological symptoms, such as worry, anxiety, and depression (Bai et al, 2016; Beebe et al, 2017).…”

“…Most prior studies of pregnant women have focused on single or multiple symptoms, examining associations among symptoms and their relationships with birth outcomes or postpartum complications (Kablan et al, 2022; Khapre et al, 2021). A longitudinal study by Lee et al (2021) showed that the most common pattern for symptoms among pregnant women was an initial decrease followed by an increase. However, the study by Lee et al used a relatively small sample size ( n = 92) and did not explore the association between symptoms and PA throughout pregnancy.…”