Anxiety and its Relationship with Maternal - Fetal Attachment in Pregnant Womenin Southeast of Iran

Volume 7 Issue 3 August - October 2017

Research Paper

Anxiety and its Relationship with Maternal - Fetal Attachment in Pregnant Womenin Southeast of Iran

Farokh Abazari*, Batool Pouraboli**, Pooneh Tavakoli***, Mohammadreza Aflatoonian****, Mehri Kohan*****

* Assistant Professor, Department of Public Health, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran.

** Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatric and Neonatal, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Iran.

*** MSC in NICU Nursing, Nursing and Midwifery,Kerman, Iran.

**** Assistant Professor, Research Center for Tropical and Infectious Disease, Kerman, Iran.

***** Lecturer, Department of Nursing and Midwifery, Kerman, Iran.

Abazari,F., Pouraboli, B., Tavakoli,P., Aflatoonian ,M., Kohan,M. (2017). Anxiety and its Relationship with Maternal-Fetal Attachment in Pregnant Women in Southeast of Iran. i-manager’s Journal on Nursing, 7(3), 16-27. https://doi.org/10.26634/jnur.7.3.13788

Abstract

Pregnancy is an important spiritual experience that causes many psychological changes in pregnant women. Attachment is a stable emotional relationship between the mother and her fetus. In other words, anxious disorders are common in pregnancy and they may lead to side effects on mother and the fetus. The present research aims to study the relationship between anxiety and maternal-fetal attachment. This descriptive- analytic study was conducted in Kerman in 2014. The subjects were 360 pregnant women and they were chosen by simple sampling. Data has been analyzed using anxiety questionnaire of Spielberger, Cranley's maternal-fetal attachment questionnaire and SPSS version 20 (SPSS-Statistical Package for Social Science). The mean score of overt and covert anxiety in pregnant women was average and the mean score of attachment was high. There was a direct and significant relationship between maternal-fetal attachment and anxiety (p < 0.05, r= 0.283). Results showed that there is a direct relationship between anxiety and maternal-fetal attachment such that concern of fetal abnormality and abortion is followed by increase of attachment in addition to increasing amount of anxiety. It seems that psychological advices are required to keep the balance between anxiety and attachment particularly in pregnancy.