The relationships between pregnant women's psychosocial health condition and their body perception and affecting

Aim: This study was carried out to determine the relationship between the psychosocial health status of the pregnant women and their body perception and affecting factors. Method: This study was conducted with 376 pregnant women who applied for antenatal check up to the Obstetrics and Gynecology Polyclinic of Tepecik Training and Research Hospital of Izmir North Region Union Secretariat General Of Public Hospitals' Health Sciences University between April and November 2017. The data were collected by using "Personal Information Form", "Pregnancy Psychosocial Health Assessment Scale (PPHAS)" and "Body Perception Scale (BPS)". In the analysis of the data, percentage distribution, mean, Kruskal Wallis test, Mann Whitney U test and Pearson Correlation Analysis were used. Results: It was determined that 35.1% of the pregnant women were in the age group of 25-30 years, 33.2% of them were secondary school graduates. 77.4% of them did not work, 56.6% of them had 1-5 years long marriages and 85.9% of them had nuclear families. It was determined that the mean of the total PPHAS scores of the pregnants was 3.08 ± 0.38 while the mean of their total BPS scores was 141.00 ± 28.12. It was found that the pregnant women's perception of income status, their number of pregnancies, their planning status of pregnancy and their spouses' willingness for pregnancy affected their psychosocial health (p<0.05). It was stated that the pregnant women's socio-demographic, obstetric and present pregnancies characteristics did not affect their body perception (p>0.05). The level of spouses`s education of the pregnant women and spousal body perception were found to affect the body health during pregnancy (p<0.05). A weak positive correlation was found between pregnancy psychosocial health status and body perception (p<0.01, r=0.254). Conclusion: The results of the study found that pregnant women have moderate levels of psychosocial health depends on their total PPHAS scores and a good level of body perception depends on the mean of their total BPS scores. As the level of psychosocial health increases, the body perception increases.