Abstract
BackgroundLittle is known about how optimism/pessimism and health-related quality of life compare across cultures.MethodsThree samples of pregnant women in their final trimester were recruited from China, Ghana, and the United States (U.S.). Participants completed a survey that included the Life Orientation Test - Revised (LOT-R, an optimism/pessimism measure), the Short Form 12 (SF-12, a quality of life measure), and questions addressing health and demographic factors. A three-country set was created for analysis by matching women on age, gestational age at enrollment, and number of previous pregnancies. Anovas with post-hoc pairwise comparisons were used to compare results across the cohorts. Multivariate regression analysis was used to create a model to identify those variables most strongly associated with optimism/pessimism.ResultsLOT-R scores varied significantly across cultures in these samples, with Ghanaian pregnant women being the most optimistic and least pessimistic and Chinese pregnant women being the least optimistic overall and the least pessimistic in subscale analysis. Four key variables predicted approximately 20% of the variance in overall optimism scores: country of origin (p = .006), working for money (p = .05); level of education (p = .002), and ever being treated for emotional issues with medication (p < .001). Quality of life scores also varied by country in these samples, with the most pronounced difference occurring in the vitality measure. U.S. pregnant women reported far lower vitality scores than both Chinese and Ghanaian pregnant women in our sample.ConclusionThis research raises important questions regarding what it is about country of origin that so strongly influences optimism/pessimism among pregnant women. Further research is warranted exploring underlying conceptualization of optimism/pessimism and health related quality of life across countries.
Highlights
Little is known about how optimism/pessimism and health-related quality of life compare across cultures
This research was undertaken to explore the differences among a three-sample matched cohort of pregnant women at the same stage in their pregnancies in Ghana, China, and the U.S The specific aims of this research were to 1) identify if and to what extent optimism and pessimism vary across similar populations of pregnant women in three different countries; 2) determine if and to what extent self-assessed quality of life scores vary among similar populations of pregnant women in three different countries, and 3) determine if optimism and/or pessimism is predictive of or associated with current self-perceived health status and/or selfassessed Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQOL) and how that might vary by culture
Educational variables were assessed slightly differently in Ghana than in China and the U.S, making it difficult to compare across countries
Summary
Little is known about how optimism/pessimism and health-related quality of life compare across cultures. The psychosocial constructs of optimism and pessimism have been under study for several decades. [12] the impact of optimism and pessimism is potentially enormous yet still very unclear. In this context, even less is known about differences across cultures. While several studies have shown levels of optimism/pessimism to vary across cultures, [1,13,14,15,16,17,18,19] findings have been inconsistent in terms of which cultural groups are more or less optimistic. No research to date has compared Asian, African, and Western cultures in the same study
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