THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN POST‐TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER, POST‐TRAUMATIC GROWTH, AND SOCIAL SUPPORT IN WOMEN WITH PERINATAL LOSS

Abstract

Understanding interrelationship between post-traumatic stress disorder, post-traumatic growth, and social support among women with perinatal loss is important for parturients and those who care for them. The purposes of the study were to describe PTSD, post-traumatic growth (PTG), social support (SS) and their relationship. A convenient sampling method was used to recruit 131 women with prenatal loss, receiving the health care service at the Maternal and Child Health Hospital, Xia Pu County, China. Four instruments used for data collection include demographic record form, PTSD Checklist - Civilian Version, Chinese Version of Post Traumatic Growth Inventory and Perceived Social Support Scale, which yielded reliabilities of 0.90, 0.85, and 0.93, respectively. Data was analyzed by descriptive statistics and Pearson product-moment correlation.

The results of this study showed that in two surveys of 3 months & 6 months after perinatal loss, the mean scores of PTSD, PTG, and SS were 59.01 ±10.40 & 42.79 ± 12.73, 69.98 ± 11.36 & 36.98 ± 5.11, and 45.61± 4.06 & 48.31 ± 4.42 respectively. In the first survey, there was negative correlation between PTSD and PTG (r = -.227, p <.01). In the second survey, there was positive correlation between PTSD2 and PTG2, PTG2 and SS2 (r = .245, .173; p <.01, and <.05 respectively). PTSD or PTG decrease but SS increases from 3 months to 6 months after perinatal loss (M = -16.22 SD = 11.51, p < .001; M = -33.00 SD = 12.03, p < .001, and M = -2.69 SD = 3.93, p < .001).

The results will help midwives focus on decreasing post-traumatic stress disorder and promoting social support among perinatal bereaved women in hospital and help community nurses with more attention to women suffering perinatal loss to increase PTG and SS.

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