Perinatal grieving process and affecting factors in women who experienced loss during pregnancy

Objective: This study was conducted to evaluate the perinatal grieving process and the affecting factors in women who experienced loss during pregnancy. Method:. The sample of the study, which was planned as a descriptive study, consists of 160 women with pregnancy loss who applied to the Süleyman Demirel University Research and Application Hospital and Isparta City Hospital Gynecology clinic between April 2019 and April 2021. Data were collected by interviewing women within the first 24 hours after pregnancy loss, using the Personal Information Form and the Perinatal Grief Scale. Findings were analyzed with SPSS, Kolmogorov Smirnov test, t test, ANOVA, Mann-Whitney U, Pearson correlation test were used and the results were evaluated at p<0.05 significance level. Results: In the study, the mean PGS total score of the women from the Perinatal Grief Scale (PGS) was 91.19 ±23.7, the mean of the active grief subscale was 33.68 ± 8.8, the mean of the difficulty in coping subscale was 28 ± 8.3, and the mean of the hopelessness subscale was 29.5 ± 8.5. There is a strong, highly significant positive correlation between active grief, difficulty in coping, and hopelessness dimension scores and PGS total score. Age, total income of the family, number of living children, weeks in current pregnancy loss, time elapsed since pregnancy loss; no correlation was found between PGS total score and sub-dimension scores. Conclusion: It was determined that women who experienced pregnancy loss experienced the perinatal grieving process. It has been concluded that the most important factor affecting perinatal grief in current pregnancy loss is social support, socio-economic level, educational status, and unplanned pregnancy affect grief. Key words: Pregnancy loss, perinatal grief, nursing care