Paper
Thursday, 20 July 2006
This presentation is part of : Maternal-Child Care Strategies
A Study to Assess the Effect of Wanted and Unwanted Pregnancy on the Anxiety Level of Antenatal Women
Ramandeep Kaur, BSc, Guru Nanak College of Nursing, Guru Nanak Mission Medical & Educational Trust, Distt. Nawanshahr, Punjab, India
Learning Objective #1: impart knowledge regarding factors behind anxiety among antenatal women.
Learning Objective #2: increase knowledge about physical and psychological changes during pregnancy.
Abstract: INTRODUCTION: Pregnancy is one of the most profound psychological events in a human life. The change that a pregnancy and baby birth initiate for expectant parents often trigger psychological responses, furthermore lead to anxiety. This anxiety can affect on both mother & baby's health, whether it is wanted or unwanted pregnancy. By knowing planning status of conception, it can help to identify the women's condition and provide support for prospective future of both. OBJECTIVE: To assess the level of anxiety among antenatal woman with wanted and unwanted pregnancy. METHODS: A comparative research approach was adopted based on purposive convenient sampling techniques. Total 50 subjects (Antenatal women), 25 with wanted pregnancy and 25 with unwanted pregnancy. Data was collected by self-structure questionnaire, which consist of 60 items divided into two parts. Part one consists 28 questions related to physical changes during pregnancy and Part two consists 32 questions related to personal life. The data obtained was analyzed in terms of descriptive and inferential statistics. FINDINGS: The analysis of data revealed that woman with unwanted pregnancy experiences more anxiety (115.52) than wanted pregnancy (96.2). There is significant relationship between anxiety of subjects and demographic variables like age at marriage (0.01), duration of marriage (0.001). Hence anxiety increases with increasing performance in these variables. But studies also showed that there is no effect of education on anxiety, whereas economic status & type of family has statistical significant relationship with anxiety. CONCLUSION: The study findings reflect that the planning status of pregnancy directly effects the anxiety level of woman. Woman with wanted pregnancy are anxious about their physical changes but woman with unwanted pregnancy is anxious about acceptance of baby in family etc. So the unwanted pregnancy becomes a big cause behind major psychosocial problems like neglected child, divorce etc.

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