Association of stress with anxiety and depression during pregnancy

Objective: to find out the association of stress with anxiety and depression during pregnancy and to identify common stressors in women. methods: this cross-sectional study was conducted at divisional headquarters teaching hospital,kohat,pakistan,from february 2011 to october 2012,and comprised pregnant women. convenient sampling technique was used. the participants were administered urdu-translated version of a-z perceived stress scale and aga khan university anxiety and depression scale. women with a score of >19 on the aga khan university scale were labelled as anxious and depressed. data was collected on a pre-designed proforma. spss 17 was used for data analysis. results: there were 500 participants with an overall mean age of 28.3±6.3 years. the overall mean stress score on a-z perceived stress scale was 12.93±5.19 and mean aga khan university anxiety and depression scale score was 28.58±13.82. mean a-z score was 14.18±4.881 in women with anxiety-depression and 9.75±4.58 in non-depressed women (p<0.001). mean aga khan score in women with >10 stressors was significantly higher (32.18±13.79) compared to women with <10 stressors (19.87±9.30) (p<0.01). a-z stressors score had significant positive correlation with the aga khan scale (p<0.001]. the most common stressors were concern about husband's worries and concern about feeling unwell during pregnancy,present in 433(86.6%) patients each,followed by concern about increase in the prices of everyday goods which was present in 364(72.8%) patients. conclusion: the magnitude of stress was significantly associated with high anxiety and depression during pregnancy. © 2017,pakistan medical association. all rights reserved.