For most women pregnancy is a positive transition in their life. The diagnosis of a fetal abnormality creates an uncertain outcome for the transitional process of becoming a parent. A prenatal diagnosis of fetal abnormality is characterized as an emotionally devastating and profoundly stressful event for women because it involves making difficult reproductive choices such as continuation of pregnancy with no intervention, elective termination, or, in selected cases, experimental fetal therapy. This descriptive correlational study examined the relationships among womens decisional conflict, anxiety, and coping strategies following a diagnosis of fetal abnormality. Fifty-five women who had a confirmed diagnosis of fetal abnormality prior to 24 weeks gestation were interviewed. Standardized instruments were used to obtain data on womens decisional conflict, anxiety and coping strategies. Overall, women had low levels of total decisional conflict, but high levels of uncertainty in choice, moderately high levels of anxiety and used proportionately more emotion-focused than problem-focused coping strategies. Women who received a diagnosis of a lethal fetal abnormality had higher anxiety and uncertainty in choice than women who received a non-lethal diagnosis. Womens level of anxiety and use of escape-avoidance coping also were found to be significant predictors of decisional conflict. The findings of this study provide a deeper understanding of the decision dilemma and the pattern of coping as important factors affecting womens resolution of the decisional conflict following diagnosis of fetal abnormality.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-04112008-074256 |
| Date | 12 May 2008 |
| Creators | Howard, Elisabeth Davies |
| Contributors | Michele Salisbury, Joseph Hepworth, Stephen Carr, Lynda LaMontagne |
| Publisher | VANDERBILT |
| Source Sets | Vanderbilt University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-04112008-074256/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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