The Effects Of Pregnancy Pressure,Perceived Social Support On Anxiety Symptoms Among Pregnant Women In Shenyang: A Cross-Sectional Study

Objective: This study aims to describe the prevalence of anxiety symptoms among pregnant women in mid-pregnancy,and further explore whether perceived social support could mediate the association of pregnancy pressure and anxiety symptoms.In order to provide conductive ideas for alleviating the anxiety symptoms of pregnant women,carrying out holistic and scientific care and strengthening targeted psychological intervention.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted.From June to September in 2019,340 pregnant women who had a mid-pregnancy and met the selecting standards were selected from community health centers in Shenyang.Self-reported questionnaires were distributed to them.Pregnancy Pressure Scale,Perceived Social Support Scale and Self-rating Anxiety Scale were used to assess pregnancy pressure,perceived social support and anxiety symptoms level of pregnant women.IBM SPSS Statistics21.0(IBM,Asia Analytics Shanghai)was used to conduct statistical analyses.Group differences of continuous variables were tested by t-test or one-way ANOVA;Pearson correlation was used to analyze the correlation among continuous variables.;In this study,tolerance and Variance Inflation Factor(VIF)values < 10,which indicated that multicollinearity was not an issue in the estimate.Hierarchical regression analysis was applied to examine the association among pregnancy pressure,perceived social support and anxiety symptoms as well as to explore the mediating role of perceived social support in the relationship between pregnancy pressure and anxiety symptoms;we used asymptotic and resampling strategies to examine the mediating effect of perceived social support.Results: 1.We collected 340 questionnaires totally and 290 were effective(the effective rate was 85.3%).Pregnant women's average age in the second trimester was31.88±3.83 years old,the average score of anxiety symptoms was 42.41±7.89.62 individuals had anxiety symptoms,and the prevalence of anxiety symptoms among pregnant women in Shenyang was 21.4%.2.Educational degree,household monthly income(yuan),whether husband smoke or not,the time of being exposed to noise were associated with anxiety symptoms ofpregnant women(p<0.05).3.Pregnancy pressure was significantly positively related to anxiety symptoms among pregnant women at mid-pregnancy(p<0.01),perceived social support was significantly and negatively associated with anxiety symptoms(p<0.01).4.After adjusting for demographic characteristics,pregnancy pressure was positively associated with anxiety symptoms(?=0.221,p<0.01),and it explained 4.8% of the variance of the dependent variable.When perceived social support was added into the model,it explained additional 7.7% of the variance of anxiety symptoms(?=-0.290,p<0.01).The absolute values of regression coefficients of pregnancy pressure on anxiety symptoms were decreased.Thus,perceived social support could probably function as a mediator in the association of pregnancy pressure with anxiety symptoms.In asymptotic and resampling strategies results,perceived social support partially mediated the correlation between pregnancy pressure and anxiety symptoms(a*b=0.073,BCa 95% CI:(0.035,0.124)).The proportion of perceived social support mediation was 32.805% for anxiety symptoms.Conclusion: The level of anxiety symptoms among pregnant women of mid-pregnancy in Shenyang is still serious.Pregnancy pressure might be a vital predictor for anxiety symptoms of pregnant women,perceived social support maybe positive to prevent anxiety symptoms of pregnant women.Medical staff should strengthen prenatal education to pregnant women to reduce their pregnancy pressure,meanwhile,family members should provide more care and support to pregnant women,so that pregnant women could keep a good attitude,and effectively alleviate the adverse effects of pregnancy pressure on pregnant women.