“How Do You Deal With Stress?”: Pregnant Women’s Methods of Coping
Andrea D Clements
East Tennessee State University
Beth A Bailey
James H. Quillen College of Medicine
Heather Wright
James H. Quillen College of Medicine
Poster Submitted for Presentation at
The Conference on Human Development
April 8-11, 2010
New York, NY
Abstract
During intake history 1312 rural women admitted for singleton birth were asked “How do you deal with
stress?” Responses were categorized into 18 stress coping strategies. Four of these (Social Support,
Exercise, Prayer/Religion, Relaxation Techniques) have been empirically shown to reduce stress and
were reported by 18% of women. Four others (Smoking, Medication/Alcohol, Doing Nothing, Not Coping
Well) were categorized as negative coping and were reported by 16% of women, while 69% of
respondents reported at least one strategy for which there is currently little empirical effectiveness data.
Findings suggest a need for intervention and further empirical study.
“How Do You Deal With Stress?”: Pregnant Women’s Methods of Coping
The current study sought to summarize the stress coping methods pregnant women report using during
pregnancy. Obstetric and birth charts were reviewed for 1334 cases, representing all singleton deliveries
from 1/1/06 through 12/31/08 at a rural Appalachian hospital. Answers to this question were not recorded
for 22 women, thus, the final sample size for this report is 1312. High-risk births were transferred to a
nearby teaching hospital, so this sample represents a low-obstetric-risk sample. Data were collected via
individual chart review by research project staff using a two page study-designed data collection form.
Over 90% of the deliveries were reviewed by a single examiner, with reliability checks performed early in
the process.
All women were asked the following question by the intake nurse when they arrived for delivery:
“How do you deal with stress?”
No response choices were offered, and responses were recorded verbatim. For the first 300 exactly what
was written in the chart was recorded, with qualitative methodology used to combine responses into 18
distinct and meaningful categories. These categories allowed for classification of all responses from the
first 300 cases, and were then used to record responses dichotomously for the next 200 cases. At the
end of those 200 cases it was clear that the categories included all possible responses seen, and were
subsequently used as designed for the remainder of the data collection. The final categories of coping
were: Support Seeking, Rest, Bath/Shower, Exercise, Reading/Writing, Hobbies, Prayer/Religion,
Housework, TV/Music, Relaxation Techniques, Smoking, Lashing Out, Medication, Eating, Being Alone,
Crying, “Not well”, and Nothing.
Because of the open-ended nature of the stress coping question that was asked of pregnant women in
this study, we have based our analyses on the category of stress coping that each reported. While these
represent types of coping that came to mind first when asked the question, this does not mean each
woman only used these types of coping. Our assumption is that the types of coping reported were the
women’s primary coping strategies, but did not necessarily include all of the ways they dealt with stress.
Most women reported only one stress coping strategy (79.3%), 15.5% reported 2, 2% reported 3, 0.2%
reported 4, and 3% reported no strategies.
Strategy
N
Percentage
Crying
202
15.4%
Being Alone
180
13.7%
Lashing Out
134
10.2%
Rest
121
9.2%
Smoking
116
8.8%
Reading/Writing
94
7.2%
Support Seeking*
93
7.1%
Housework
90
6.9%
Nothing
85
6.5%
TV/Music
75
5.7%
Hobbies
74
5.6%
Exercise*
73
5.6%
Bath/Shower
69
5.3%
Relaxation Techniques*
61
4.6%
Eating
27
2.1%
Prayer/Religion*
22
1.7%
“Not well”
11
0.8%
Medication/Alcohol
7
0.5%
*Empirically shown in previous research to reduce stress
Stress coping strategies that have been empirically shown to reduce stress in pregnant and non-pregnant
populations are indicated, and were reported by 18.5% of respondents. Negative coping strategies (i.e.,
smoking, using medications/alcohol, doing nothing, or reported not coping well) were reported by 16.6%
of respondents. The majority of respondents (68.6%) indicated that they deal with stress using at least
one of the remaining strategies for which there is currently little empirical effectiveness data.
Findings revealed a low rate of use of empirically supported stress coping strategies. This, coupled with
the known negative effects of prenatal stress indicate that the study population could potentially benefit
from an intervention to bolster stress coping.