The relationship between theory of mind and depression, anxiety and prenatal attachment in pregnant women

The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between theory of mind ability and prenatal attachment, depression and anxiety levels in pregnant women. It is aimed to investigate whether there is a difference in terms of prenatal attachment, depression and anxiety in pregnant women whose ToM skills are more developed and underdeveloped. The sample of the study consists of 120 pregnant women who were randomly selected among the pregnant women 20 weeks or older and applied to the Atasam Medical Center, Obstetrics and Gynecology Clinic in Samsun. This sample includes pregnant women over the age of 18 who have a healthy fetus, do not have any mental disability or have a birth-threatening disease. For the purpose of the study, after obtaining their informed consent, Demographic Information Form, Beck Depression Inventory, Beck Anxiety Inventory, Prenatal Attachment Inventory and Reading the Mind in the Eyes test were administered to the participants. IBM SPSS program was used in the statistical analysis of the data. In order to evaluate the data obtained, "Mann-Whitney U" and "Kruskal-Wallis" tests, which are non-parametric methods, were used in the comparisons between groups, since the variables did not comply with the normal distribution. Pearson Correlation Analysis was used to examine the relationship between "Prenatal Attachment" and "ToM" scores. Then, the "prenatal attachment" variable was used as the dependent variable and the depression and anxiety variables were controlled separately, and Hierarchical Regression Analysis was applied. According to the results of the analysis, a significant and positive relationship was found between the ToM functions of pregnant women and their prenatal attachment levels. However, when the depression and anxiety variables were included in this model separately, although there was a difference in the model, this difference was not significant. It has been observed that ToM functions and prenatal attachment levels are also associated with some demographic characteristics such as the age of the pregnant woman and gestational week. It is thought that the research findings showing the relationship between ToM functions and prenatal attachment provide important findings to the literature in terms of increasing prenatal attachment through ToM developing interventions that can be applied to pregnant women.