The effect of stress level of pregnant women on expectations of care in pregnancy

This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of the stress levels of pregnant women on the expectation of care during pregnancy. 150 pregnant women who applied for antenatal follow-up to the pregnant outpatient clinics of a state hospital in the southern part of Turkey were included in this descriptive study. Data of the study collected with Personal Information Form, Pregnancy Stress Rating Scale (PSRS-36) and Expectation of Pregnancy Care Scale (EPCS). Frequency descriptive statistics in data analysis; Mann-Whitney U" test, Kruskal-Wallis H test, Bonferroni and Spearman correlation tests were used. p<0.05 was considered statistically significant. The pregnant women's PSRS-36 average total score 25,17±20,06; EPCS average total score 91,63±9,18. It was determined that there was a statistically significant differences between the age, social security status of the pregnant women and the total score averages of PSRS-36 (p<0.05). There is a statistically significant difference between only the gestational week and the total average score of EPCS of the pregnant women (p<0.05). A negative, weak, and statistically significant relationship was found between the pregnant women's EPCS interest-communication, education-information, privacy, participation-confidence sub-dimensions, and total EPCS scores with the PSRS-36 subscale of stress arising from the definition of motherhood role (p<0.05). A negative, weak, and statistically significant relationship was found between the EPCS education-information, privacy sub-dimensions, and total EPCS scores of pregnant women with the sub-dimension of stress arising from seeking social support of PSRS-36 (p<0.05). The significant correlation was not found between the total PSRS-36 and EPCS score (p>0.05). In this study, it was found that pregnant women had a low level of pregnancy stress but had high expectations.