Measurements
anxiety, infertility, psychological distress, depression, Prenatal Distress
SECONDARY
The demographic and fertility information questionnaire included the mother’s age, job, and education level, the father’s education level and job, the family’s economic status, place of residence, gestational age, number of pregnancies, number of living children and history of infertility.The primary outcome of this study was anxiety, depression and psychological distress by Brief Symptom Inventory [BSI-18] and Revised Prenatal Distress [NuPDQ] were used.BSI-18 [Brief Symptom Inventory] assesses three factors: depression, anxiety and somatization. Scoring is based on a five-point Likert scale. [0 = not at all, 1 = a little bit, 2 = moderate, 3 = quite a bit, 4 = extremely]. Pregnant women with a score higher than 0.5 were diagnosed with psychological distress and entered the study. The validated Persian version was used in the study that Reliability coefficients and retest coefficients were 0.90 and 0.81 respectively [NuPDQ-17 [Prenatal Distress Questionnaire] includes 17 items and three subscales. The subscales include 1- concerns about giving birth and the infant, 2- concerns about body image/weight and 3- concerns about relationships and emotions. Participants’ responses are scored on a 3-point Likert scale [0 = not at all, 1 = somewhat, 2 = very much] with a cut-off of 16. Reliability coefficients [Cronbach’s alpha] for 3 Persian NuPDQ-17 subscales were 0.73 to 0.93. The total Cronbach’s alpha of this instrument was 0.78 [The secondary outcome of this study was the general stress of pregnant women measured by the Perceived Stress Scale [PSS-14]. PSS-14 [Cohen’s General Perceived Stress Scale]; This tool consists of 14 items which are all measured scored on a 5-point Likert scale from [Never = 0, almost never = 1, sometimes = 2, often = 3 and very often = 4], [Before initiating the therapy, all pregnant women completed a demographic information questionnaire, BSI-18 questionnaire, NuPDQ-17 Prenatal Distress Questionnaire and General Perceived Stress Questionnaire [PSS-14] with the assistance of an expert outside the research team.