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MA/PhD Theses Abstracts of Current Students & Alumni |
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Hurwitz, Rhea. August, 1982. - SOME OBSERVATIONS ON PSYCHOSOCIAL FACTORS IN HIGH RISK PREGNANCY
Abstract: This research describes some psychological and social factors present in a population of women with medically high risk pregnancies. A review of the literature reveals that most of the high risk obstetrical material emphasizes biomedical problems and their treatment and only briefly if at all touches on psychosocial problems which may accompany a high risk pregnancy. In order to investigate these psychosocial patterns, a combination of methods was used. Ethnographic research on a sample (n=35) of hospitalized high risk women who were more than twenty-eight weeks pregnant was integrated with the administration of a structured questionnaire (Maternal Attitudes toward Pregnancy Instrument). A statistical analysis of the questionnaire results revealed factors focused on 1) expectations of labor and delivery, 2) attitudes toward health professionals, 3) feelings about the baby, and 4) feelings about being pregnant. These factors were also raised by patients during the less formal interviews. The factor analysis results obtained from the high risk sample are similar to, but not identical with the original non-high risk sample results analyzed in 1963. These differences are probably due both to experiences which high risk women have had with pregnancy (i.e., high incidence of miscarriage), and to changes in the twenty year interim which may have dated some of the variables on the questionnaire (i.e., a woman should not continue to hold a job after she has a baby). On the basis of both the ethnographic and the questionnaire findings, recommendations include staff education to increase health care providers' appreciation of the potential psychosocial problems which can accompany a high risk pregnancy. Future investigation of psychosocial issues in high risk pregnancy is also suggested. Such scientific research should be carried out using the holistic perspective, looking at the many interacting factors which affect women with medically high risk pregnancies, rather than single variables.
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