Women In Other Groups Research Articles

Employment, exertion, and pregnancy outcome: Assessment by kilocalories expended each day

OBJECTIVE: Our purpose was to evaluate the influence of employment and physical exertion on pregnancy outcome as quantified by kilocalories expended each day. STUDY DESIGN: This prospective study assessed 2743 pregnant women who received prenatal care and were delivered at the major perinatal center in Western Australia between May 1989 and November 1991. All women completed an extensive questionnaire on their social, medical, psychosocial, and economic circumstances. The women were allocated to five groups on the basis of kilocalorie expenditure per day. RESULTS: The characteristics of women in each energy expenditure group were different, with those in the least-expenditure group being younger and shorter, more likely to be living in worse socioeconomic conditions, smoke cigarettes, be nulliparous, and to be of an ethnic group other than white. After confounding effects were adjusted, women in the medium energy expenditure group were delivered of babies of higher birth weight than were women in other groups. However, the differences in birth weight between the energy expenditure categories were small, and mean birth weights within each group were within the normal range. Women in the medium energy expenditure group also had fewer incidences of prelabor rupture of membranes and women in the lower energy expenditure category had increased risks of antepartum admission to the hospital and preterm birth. A variety of other differences were observed in pregnancy outcomes for women in each of the categories of energy expenditure, but most of these differences were explained by the characteristics of the women in each expenditure level rather than the exercise pattern itself. CONCLUSION: These results indicate that the effects of daily energy expenditure on pregnancy outcome are not great. Enthusiasm for counseling pregnant women of the benefits or hazards of extremes in daily activity should be tempered by the relative lack of an effect and the fact that most apparent differences are due to confounding variables rather than the exercise itself. (Am J Obstet Gynecol 1996;175:182-7.)

Premenstrual Hostility, Impulsivity and Impaired Social Functioning*

The diversity of premenstrual changes (PMCs) has been increasingly recognized recently. Subtypes, unipolar features and bipolar dimensions of PMC were assessed with the newly developed Premenstrual Assessment Form (PAF) showing that various groups of subjects differ in the prevalence of reported changes.We report results on 505 women who were recruited in a variety of ways. The prevalence of hostile features in our sample varied from 83% in a group of treatment-seeking women to 15% among a group of executives. Two groups of responders to mass-media publicity did not differ on the item of impaired social functioning — 91% and 92% reported these features compared to 14-45% of women in the other groups. 80% of treatment-seeking women met criteria for PAF impulsive syndrome compared to 12-40% of women in other groups. Only a few of the successful professional women complained of any of the above premenstrual syndromes. The prevalence of these syndromes among medical center's employees and student nurses was m...

An experimental investigation of assertive training in a group setting

Assertive training has had much attention as a procedure for shaping assertive behavior and reducing fear of social confrontations in nonassertive clients, but there have been few controlled studies to assess its efficacy. In the present study, three groups of college women received assertive training, three groups discussed fears and related problems, and several other women received no treatment. Those receiving assertive training reported significantly greater gains in assertive behavior than control subjects, evinced a trend to exhibit more assertive behavior than did women in other groups, reported significantly greater general fear reduction than control subjects, and tended to report greater reduction of fear of social criticism and fear of social competence than did women in other groups.