Worries of Pregnant Women: Testing the Farsi Cambridge Worry Scale.

Forough Mortazavi,Arash Akaberi

doi:10.1155/2016/5791560

Forough Mortazavi, Arash Akaberi

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1155/2016/5791560

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Abstract

Pregnancy adds many sources of concerns to women's daily life worries. Excessive worry can affect maternal physiological and psychological state that influences the pregnancy outcomes. The aim of this study was to validate the Cambridge Worry Scale (CWS) in a sample of Iranian pregnant women. After translation of the CWS, ten experts evaluated the items and added six items to the 17-item scale. In a descriptive cross-sectional study, 405 of pregnant women booked for prenatal care completed the Farsi CWS. We split the sample randomly. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted on the first half of the sample to disclose the factorial structure of the 23-item scale. The results of the EFA on the Farsi CWS indicated four factors altogether explained 51.5% of variances. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was done on the second half of the sample. The results of the CFA showed that the model fit our data (chi-square/df = 2.02, RMSEA = 0.071, SRMR = 0.071, CFI = 0.95, and NNFI = 0.94). Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the Farsi CWS was 0.883. The Farsi CWS is a reliable and valid instrument for understanding common pregnancy worries in the third trimester of pregnancy in Iranian women.

Highlights

Pregnancy is a period in a woman’s life filled with pleasant anticipation of a baby, which may be influenced by several psychological stressors
We considered a relative chi-square < 3.00 [38], a root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) value of
We evaluated the construct validity by determining the predictive validity of the 22item Farsi Cambridge Worry Scale (CWS)

Summary

Introduction

Pregnancy is a period in a woman’s life filled with pleasant anticipation of a baby, which may be influenced by several psychological stressors. Research on the psychological state in pregnancy indicates that each trimester of pregnancy includes possible stressors that may provoke several worries for pregnant women [1]. Several studies indicated that worries about the possibility of losing the baby, baby’s health, and childbirth are common causes of concerns among pregnant women [1, 3, 5,6,7]. In addition to this kind of worries, there are other sources of worries in women daily life (e.g., worry about money, job, housing, their health, and marital relationships) [8]. Most women experience some mild worries during pregnancy; some women may experience pathological worries, defined as uncontrollable negative thoughts and excessive concern about future events in pregnancy which can produce anxiety [9]

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