Is pregnancy-specific anxiety more enduring than general anxiety using self-report measures? A short-term longitudinal study

Abstract

ABSTRACTObjective: To investigate whether the rates of transient and enduring distress differ between general and pregnancy-specific anxiety in antenatal English-speaking women.Background: Evidence indicates that half of women with high levels of general anxiety during pregnancy will no longer be highly anxious after a few weeks, without having received treatment. Pregnancy-specific anxiety, however, may be more enduring, as many worries concerning the forthcoming birth, whether the baby will be healthy and the woman’s ability to care for a newborn are likely to continue, or increase, during the pregnancy.Method: Women attending a public hospital antenatal clinic completed several mood questionnaires, including a mix of general anxiety and pregnancy-specific anxiety scales (T1). Between 2 and weeks later (T2), still during pregnancy, participants completed the same measures via a phone interview.Results: Between 76 and 243 women completed the different measures at both time points. For each measure the result was similar: about half of women scoring high at the first assessment (T1) continued to score high at T2 on both the general and pregnancy-specific anxiety measures, despite not receiving any specialist intervention. By contrast, over 90% of women initially scoring low on the various measures continued to score low at T2.Conclusion: Whether women are screened for pregnancy-specific or for general anxiety, around half scoring ‘high’ on the measure will no longer be in the anxious range a few weeks later. They thus have ‘transient’ anxiety. This transient/enduring finding was also confirmed for those with high levels of depressive symptomatology.