The Moderating Role of Pregnancy Status among Coping Strategies, Depression, Anxiety and Stress across Pakistani Married Women

Abstract

 Current study designed to investigate the moderating role of pregnancy status among coping strategies, stress, anxiety and depression across Pakistani women. Sample consisted of 200 married women (Pregnant, n= 100; Non-Pregnant, n=100) with age ranged from 20 to 40 years. Purposive sampling technique was used based on the cross-sectional research design. The married, pregnant and non-pregnant women were inquired at the gynecology and obstetrics department of hospitals in Rawalpindi, Islamabad and Taxila, Pakistan. Two scales were applied to asses depression, anxiety, stress, active avoidance coping, problem focused coping, emotional support, religious coping, in married women. This study revealed that Active Avoidance Coping was significantly predicting to depression (β=.25, p<.05), anxiety (β=.26, p<0.5), and stress (β=.26, p<.05) in pregnant women. However, Emotion focused coping was also significantly predicting to stress (β=.23, p<.05) in pregnant women. In addition, results also revealed that problem focused coping was significantly predicting to depression (β=.10, p>.05) and anxiety (β=.29, p<.05) in pregnant women. Our study analysis revealed that pregnancy status was playing role of moderator among coping strategies, stress, anxiety and depression across Pakistani women. This study would be helpful for health and clinical settings to spread awareness for pregnant women, how to handle psychological problems with their health issues.