Discussion
fretfulness, worry, anxiety, anxious behaviors
CORONAVIRUS
The CBC was effective in the anxiety of pregnant women about prenatal screening tests. The intervention was also effective on the anxiety sub-scales including the fear of childbirth, the fear of giving birth to a child with physical or mental health issues, the fear of changes in marital relationships, and the fear of changes in the personal life of the mother. However, it was not effective on the subscale of fear of changes in mood and its consequences for the child. Moreover, the intervention was effective on the worry and all of its sub-scales. Pregnant women with anxiety identify potential health threats and exacerbate their anxiety and develop spontaneous, persistent fretfulness response patterns, thoughts, and feelings. The continuation of these types of thoughts, feelings and anxious behaviors eventually causes this chain to be completely out of consciousness [This study revealed that individual CBC was effective on the total anxiety of pregnant women with intermediate screening results. This result is consistent with the results of many previous studies with different counselling approaches in Iran. Bayat et al. indicated that short-term psychological intervention is effective on anxiety in pregnant women with positive screening results [The results of this study showed that during different phases of the study, the sub-scales of anxiety except for the fear of changes in mood and its consequences for the child decreased significantly over time. Karrabi et al. (2019) also showed that solution-oriented counselling is effective on pregnant women’s concerns about fetal and maternal health and family relationships and childbirth [The CBC was effective on the worry and its subscales. Consistent with this study, Kurdi et al. (2015) showed that group and individual training of pregnant women about screening tests is effective in anxiety and worry about pregnancy [One of the limitations of this study is the self-reporting of anxiety and worry of pregnant women. It was out of the researcher’s control. Most of the participants were housewives, it is suggested Generalizability of the result was done with this limitation. Other limitations of the study were the specific circumstances of the country in terms of the coronavirus epidemic, which made it impossible to provide face-to-face counselling. Conducting similar studies with different approaches and longer follow-up time and duration are suggested.