The Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy on Pregnancy Anxiety and Physiological Parameters of Newborns

Abstract

Background: Pregnancy is an important part of a woman's life that requires psychological adjustment. This research was conducted aiming to investigate the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy on pregnancy anxiety and physiological parameters of newborns.Materials and Methods: In this pre-test-post-test pilot study in which there was an experimental and a control group, single-blind method was used since the evaluation of research participants was based on self-reporting. The statistical population of the research consisted of primiparous women who presented to Bahar Hospital, Shahrood in 2022. Overall 60 women were included in the study via convenience sampling method. They were then randomly divided into experimental and control groups (n=30). The experimental group received eight one-hour therapy sessions based on acceptance and commitment, but the control group did not receive any intervention. Research tools were Vandenberg Pregnancy Anxiety Questionnaire (1989) and Measurement of physiological parameters of newborns. The research data was analyzed by using univariate covariance analysis in the SPSS version 24 software.Results: The findings showed that the treatment based on acceptance and commitment is effective on pregnancy anxiety and physiological parameters of newborns (p<0.05).Conclusion: The results indicate that treatment based on acceptance and commitment by reducing experiential avoidance and increasing acceptance leads to a decrease in anxiety during pregnancy and improvement of the physiological parameters of newborns.

Keywords

• neonatal'
• physiological parameters
• prenatal anxiety