Jornal de Cuidados com a Saúde da Mulher
Acesso livre

Abstrato

Prevalence of Stress among Pregnant Women Attending Antenatal Care in a Tertiary Maternity Hospital in Kathmandu

Sandesh Pantha, Bruce Hayes, Bharat Kumar Yadav, Paban Sharma, Ashis Shrestha and Pragya Gartoulla

Objective: One of the important factors that have always been overlooked is the stress during pregnancy. Psychosocial stress during pregnancy has been linked as a predictor of adverse pregnancy outcome in various studies. One of the important factors that have always been overlooked is the stress during pregnancy. Psychosocial stress during pregnancy has been linked as a predictor of adverse pregnancy outcome in various studies.
Methodology: A cross-sectional prospective observational study was conducted among the pregnant women attending Antenatal Checkup at the general Antenatal Clinic of Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of Patan Hospital. Data was collected by using self-structured questionnaire using General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) and 21 item modified life events inventory during the late first trimester and early third trimester. Sample size calculated was based on the existing data of 25% and 10% prevalence of LBW among the stressed and non- stressed women. Data was entered using Epidata and analyzed using R 2.10.1 software.
Results and discussion: Most of the respondents were among the age group of 20-29 years with mean age of 25 years. The mean score on GHQ-12 was 9.79 and 9.69 in the first and third trimester respectively. Prevalence of stress during pregnancy was 35% in the first trimester and 34.2% in the third trimester.
Conclusion: There was high prevalence of stress among the women attending ANC clinic at Patan Hospital. As this is the data from one of the urban population of Nepal, the prevalence of stress in the rural areas might be even more than this number.