Maternal worries and their relationship with coping strategies in pregnant women referring to health centers in Hamadan

Background & Aim: Given the importance of the physical and mental health of pregnant women and the negative effects of worry on maternal and fetal health, identifying the factors affecting the reduction of worries is necessary. Therefore, the present study was performed to determine maternal worries and their relationship with coping strategies. Methods & Materials: This analytical, cross-sectional study was performed on 465 pregnant women 14-40 weeks referred to health centres in Hamadan in 2015-2016. Data were collected using the obstetric and socio-demographic characteristics questionnaires, the Billings and Moos Coping Strategy and the Cambridge Worry Scale (CWS). Descriptive and inferential statistics including Spearman correlation and One-way analysis of variance were used to determine relationship between worries and coping strategies. A p-value <0.05 was considered significant. Results: The mean (SD) of worry score was 25.8 (15.1), with achievable scores of 0 to 80. Thus, 67.3 were not worried, 30.1 expressed a small amount of concern and 2.6 had a great deal of concern. The comparison of the total score of coping strategies and the two subscales of problem-focused and emotion-focused coping strategies in the three groups indicated that only the emotion-focused strategy score was different in these groups (P<0.005). Conclusion: The findings of the study indicate that there is a direct correlation between maternal worries and use of emotion-focused strategy. Therefore, it is suggested that midwives help pregnant women to reduce worry by training coping strategies in order to increase the use of problem-focused strategy. © 2018, Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS). All rights reserved.