The Relation of Life Stress and Social Support to Emotional Disequilibrium During Pregnancy
- 1 December 1983
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Wiley in Research in Nursing & Health
- Vol. 6 (4) , 167-174
- https://doi.org/10.1002/nur.4770060404
Abstract
A convenience sample of 141 medically normal adult women in the mid-trimester of pregnancy were tested with standardized instruments during a routine prenatal visit. Life stress was measured for the 12-month-period preceding testing. The dependent variable, emotional disequilibrium, was a factor-analyzed construct derived from measures of state anxiety, trait anxiety, depression, and self-esteem. Life stress accounted for 29.71% of the variance in emotional disequilibrium (p = .0001), and social support accounted for a separate and non-interactive 3.11% of the variance (p = .01). Emotional disequilibrium in pregnancy decreased as a function of decreasing life stress and increasing social support.Keywords
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