Objectives: Pregnancy-Specific Perinatal Anxiety (PSPA) is an understudied mental health condition of pregnancy that may affect maternal-fetal health outcomes. The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of PSPA among pregnant women in the province of Nova Scotia, Canada, as well as the factors associated with it.
Methods: A sample of 90 pregnant women provided data on PSPA symptomology and demographic co-variables via a self-report online survey. The prevalence of PSPA in the sample was calculated and bivariate statistics and binomial logistic regression were conducted to assess the relationship between the presence of PSPA and the independent variables.
Results: The prevalence of PSPA in our sample was 17.8%. Smoking during pregnancy and a pre-pregnancy diagnosis of anxiety were significantly associated with meeting the criteria for PSPA (p = 0.008 and p = 0.013, respectively) and strongly predicted the presence of PSPA (odds ratio 8.54 and 3.44, respectively).
Conclusions for practice: A significant proportion of participants in our sample experienced symptoms consistent with a diagnosis of PSPA. This underscores the importance of further research on PSPA as a unique phenomenon in pregnant women, and the impact it may have on fetal and maternal health outcomes. A greater clinical emphasis should be placed on screening for and treating mental health conditions of pregnancy, including PSPA.
Keywords: Anxiety; Mental health; Perinatal; Pregnancy; Prevalence.
Anxiety in pregnancy affects maternal, fetal, and child health outcomes. A distinction – in terms of definition and diagnostic criteria – exists between generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) affecting pregnant women and pregnancy-specific perinatal anxiety (PSPA). The latter is a condition that has been identified as affecting pregnant women uniquely and with distinct clinical impact, but few studies have made effort to distinguish it from GAD when studying its prevalence and impact on health. This study examines the prevalence of PSPA exclusively and the variables associated with it to provide insight on the importance of this distinct clinical phenomena.
© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.