A systematic review of how pregnancy-related anxiety is measured worldwide

• In Event: Family Context and Child Development in the Global South

Abstract

Introduction
Anxiety during pregnancy is common and is associated with poor mental and physical health outcomes for both mothers and children (Blackmore et al., 2016). Pregnancy-related anxiety (PrA) is a distinct type of anxiety characterised by "nervousness and fear about the baby's health, the mother's health and appearance, experience with the health care system, social and financial issues in the context of pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting that are accompanied by excessive worry and somatic symptoms" (Bayrampour et al., 2016). PrA has stronger associations with adverse birth outcomes and child's poor behavioural, cognitive, and biological development than general anxiety or depression (Blackmore et al., 2016).

Despite its importance to maternal and neonatal health, the existent measures of PrA were all developed in high-income countries and may not be appropriate for or validated in many of the low- and middle-income country contexts in which they are used. Without a validated measures for a specific population, it is not possible to evaluate whether a program is successful at reducing pregnancy-related anxiety in that population (van Ommeren, 2003; van Ommeren et al., 1999). This gap can hinder the success of intervention implementation and evaluation programs. This systematic review aims to determine How pregnancy-related anxiety is measured in studies worldwide?

Methods
This systematic review is registered with PROSPERO (CRD42020189938). We searched Medline, PsycINFO, PsycARTICLES, CINAHL, PubMed, Web of Science, ERIC, SciELO, Scopus, and Africa Wide using “pregnancy-related anxiety”, “prenatal anxiety”, “perinatal anxiety”, “anxiety during pregnancy”, “pregnancy-specific worry”, and similar terms. After removing duplicates, this resulted in 1,860 titles.

Inclusion criteria were that the study was empirical, sampled pregnant women of any age, and assessed PrA in any way. Studies which measured general anxiety during pregnancy, but not PrA, were excluded. Two authors reviewed each abstract independently to determine if it met inclusion/exclusion criteria. We are currently in the process of reviewing 687 full-text articles for potential inclusion. Following this, two members of the study team will independently assess bias in terms of completeness of data, evidence of selective reporting, reliability and validity, and participant selection and extract data. Data will be synthesized using narrative synthesis to determine:

1) How pregnancy-related anxiety is measured worldwide, with a particular focus on where original measures were developed and how the use of validated and non-validated measures of pregnancy-related anxiety impacts what can be known about the prevalence of this anxiety in different contexts.

2) Areas of the world where we have limited information on women's pregnancy-related anxiety.

In our SRCD presentation, we will present the results of this systematic review. It is currently underway and will be completed in advance of the biennial meeting.

Conclusion
Findings of this systematic review will be critical to identify gaps in knowledge about pregnancy-related anxiety, including contexts where validated measures are urgently needed.

Authors

• Gilbert Abiiro, University of Development Studies
  Non-Presenting Author

• Luke Sartori, Queen Mary University of London
  Non-Presenting Author

• Dominic Akaateba
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kelly Hadfield
  Non-Presenting Author

• Hamideh Bayrampour, University of British Columbia
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kristin Hadfield, Trinity College Dublin
  Presenting Author