EFFECT OF THERAPEUTIC RELAXATION ON ANXIETY AND MOOD STATES IN PRIMIPAROUS WOMEN (RELAXATION).
Contributors: University of South Carolina.
Published: 1993
Number of pages: 189
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Health Sciences, Obstetrics and Gynecology.
Description: Preterm birth and low birth weight remain the leading cause of perinatal morbidity and mortality. Despite the technological advances in neonatology and maternal-fetal medicine, individual predictors that connect underlying risks to the cause of preterm birth remain poorly understood. However, a new category of perinatal risk has been recognized: maternal stress. The maternal stress response has been implicated as an etiological antecedent in poor perinatal outcomes including preterm birth. The evolving paradigm of psychoneurobiology of human responses provides a theoretical framework to guide perinatal research in examining the cognitive-affective and physiological components of the human stress response in addition to testing therapeutic relaxation interventions.

The purpose of this experimental study was to test the efficacy of a prenatal relaxation intervention in reducing the cognitive-affective reactivity of the human stress response in primiparous women. A pretest-posttest control group design with the treatment group receiving the relaxation intervention and the control group receiving an attention placebo audio book tape intervention was used. Twenty-one women, selected from the childbirth classes of a large teaching hospital, were randomly assigned to a control (n = 9) or relaxation group (n = 12). The dependent variable of maternal stress was operationalized through measures of anxiety and mood states including depression, anger, fatigue, and confusion. Data were collected using the Support Behaviors Inventory, the State Anxiety Inventory, the Profile of Mood States, and a sociodemographic questionnaire. Data were analyzed using non-parametric statistical analyses.

The hypotheses of this study predicting a decrease in maternal anxiety and negative mood states after participation in a relaxation program were rejected. Women participating in a relaxation program had no significant changes in anxiety or negative mood states after the intervention. However, women in the control group had a significant decrease in anxiety (p =.02) and anger (p =.04) following the book tape intervention as compared with women in the relaxation group. No significant differences were found between the groups on depression, fatigue, or confusion.

Findings from this study indicate further investigation of the effectiveness of audio book tape interventions to improve negative mood states is warranted. These results also illustrate the need for further testing of predictive models which match specific therapeutic relaxation interventions to client traits.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 54-05, Section: B, page: 2445.

Thesis (PH.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA, 1993.

School code: 0202.