Relationship between perceived social support, prenatal coping and psychological distress among pregnant women

Abstract

The present study examined the relationship between perceived social support (PSS), prenatal coping (NuPCI) and psychological distress (PD) among pregnant women. Employing the technique of purposive convenience sampling data was collected from 200 pregnant women including women from private (n = 120) and government (n = 80) hospitals of Rawalpindi and Islamabad. The age of sample ranged from 18 to 42 years. Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (Shahid, 2010), Revised Prenatal Coping Inventory (Hamilton & Lobel, 2008) and Kessler Psychological Distress Scale 6 (Ghafoor et aI., 2016) were used to assess the study variables. Cronbach alpha were computed to assess the internal consistency of instruments. Findings indicated that all study instruments had sound psychometric properties. Correlation analysis was conducted to study the relationship among study variables. Findings indicated that perceived social support is negatively related to psychological distress and avoidance coping. Whereas perceived social support is positively related to planning preparation and positive spiritual coping. Stepwise regression analysis indicated that avoidance coping, perceived social support and positive spiritual coping were strong predictors of psychological distress. Furthermore results revealed significant differences along work status on psychological distress where working pregnant women scored higher as compared to non-working pregnant women. Similarly, women from private hospital and high socio-economic status perceived higher social support as compared to women from government hospitals and low socioeconomic status and vice versa. Results revealed differences across education level on all study variables where women with intelmediate level of education scored high on psychological distress and avoidance coping while women with graduation level of educated scored higher on perceived social support, planning preparation and positive spiritual coping. Moreover, Women with C-section as mode of delivery scored higher on psychological distress and low on perceived social support while women with normal delivery scored high on perceived social support, planning preparation and positive spiritual. Non-significant differences were found on avoidance coping. Significant mean differences were apparent across family system where women from nuclear families scored high on perceived social support, planning preparation and positive spiritual coping. Whereas women from joint family system scored higher on psychological distress and avoidance coping.