Relationship between perceived stress and religious/spiritual coping in pregnant women with malformed foetus

Abstract

Congenital Foetal Malformity (CFM) is a stress factor for pregnant women, and religiosity and spirituality have an important role to play in coping with it. The aim of this study was to identify the correlation between stress, as perceived by pregnant women with CFM, and the diverse forms of religious/spiritual coping (RSC). This is a cross-sectional study with pregnant women treated in a hospital specializing in obstetrics in the city of Brasília, located in the Federal District in Brazil. The sample comprised 99 expectant mothers. Religious/spiritual coping was measured using the RCOPE scale devised by Pargament, Koenig and Perez (2000) which was subsequently translated into Portuguese and adapted for Brazil by Panzini and Bandeira. Stress was evaluated using the Perceived Stress Scale of Cohen, Kamarck and Mermelstein (1983), translated and validated by Luft et al. (2007). For the purposes of analysis, the SPSS-IBM 22.0 software application was employed, with a statistical analysis using means, standard deviations and frequencies, along with the Chi-Squared (elevated power of sample – 0.77) and Logistical Regression tests aimed at evaluating the relationship between perceived stress and the type of RSC. The results indicated that 92.8% of pregnant women with CFM presented with positive religious/spiritual coping (PRSC), with a mean value for perceived stress of 41.17 ± 9.03, there being an inverse relationship between perceived stress and PRSC (p = 0.02). Just five of the pregnant women presented with higher levels of stress and negative religious/spiritual coping (NRSC), without any correlation with demographic data (expectant mother’s age, religion, income, schooling, CFM prognosis or time since diagnosis). It was found that 81 (81.8%) of the pregnant women would like this topic to be addressed in the hospital setting, primarily by the doctors (56.6%) treating them