Anxiety Concerning Fetal Malformations in Pregnant Women Exposed or Not Exposed to an Antenatal Serum Alpha–Fetoprotein Screening Program

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Abstract
Individual degrees of anxiety concerning fetal malformations were assessed in early, mid- and late pregnancy by means of self-rating on visual analog scales. Two samples of women were compared, i.e., 669 women living in an area with a well-established serum .alpha.-fetoprotein screening program and 239 women living in an area where such a program had never been in operation. At the beginning of pregnancy the distributions of the individual degrees of anxiety were similar in both samples of women. In mid- and late pregnancy, the anxiety in women from the screening area was lower than the anxiety in women from nonscreened areas.