The Relation of Life Stress and Social Support to Emotional Disequilibrium During Pregnancy

Abstract

A convenience sample of 141 medically normal adult women in the mid-trimester of pregnancy were tested with standardized instruments during a routine prenatal visit. Life stress was measured for the 12-month-period preceding testing. The dependent variable, emotional disequilibrium, was a factor-analyzed construct derived from measures of state anxiety, trait anxiety, depression, and self-esteem. Life stress accounted for 29.71% of the variance in emotional disequilibrium (p = .0001), and social support accounted for a separate and non-interactive 3.11% of the variance (p = .01). Emotional disequilibrium in pregnancy decreased as a function of decreasing life stress and increasing social support.