The effect of different information sources on the anxiety level of pregnant women who underwent invasive prenatal testing

Abstract

Objective: The goal is to explore the effects of age, education, obstetric history and information sources on the (Beck) anxiety levels of pregnant women attending invasive prenatal testing.Methods: Questionnaire results from 152 pregnant women are utilized. Results are analyzed through an independent samples t-test and a two-step cluster analysis attempting to categorize patients in terms of the chosen variables.Results: t-Tests reveal that age, education and bad obstetric history do not significantly affect anxiety levels. Descriptive statistics indicate that almost 60% of patients feel anxious mostly because of the fear of receiving bad news, followed by the fear of miscarriage, the fear of pain and the fear of hurting the baby. According to the cluster analysis, patients who use doctors or nurses as information sources have significantly lower anxiety levels, while those who do not receive information from any source have the second lowest level of anxiety. Patients who receive information from personal sources (i.e. friends and family) have the highest level of anxiety. Anxiety levels do not change according to test type.Conclusions: Doctors and nurses should allocate enough time for providing information about prenatal diagnosis before the procedure. This will reduce the anxiety level as well as the felt necessity to search for information from other sources, such as personal or popular which will further increase the level of anxiety.