Assessment of psychosocial adaptation to pregnancy in brazilian pregnant women

PURPOSE: to evaluate psychosocial adaptation to pregnancy by translating and cross-culturally adapting a specific assessment instrument to be used with Brazilian women. METHODS: this was a cross-sectional observational study. The translation and cross-cultural adaptation and of the Prenatal Self-Evaluation Questionnaire (PSEQ) was performed following all the required methodological steps. Another questionnaire was applied to characterize the sociodemographic and clinical status of the pregnant women (n=36). Statistical analysis consisted of the determination of the mean and standard deviation (SD) and of absolute and relative frequency. The statistical test used for the analysis of internal consistency was Cronbach's alpha coefficient, using SPSS version 17.0. RESULTS: The volunteers were of low socioeconomic status, aged on average 25.1 years (+/- 5.5), and had an average gestational age of 25.9 weeks (+/- 8.1). 58.3% of these volunteers had not planned their current pregnancy. The pretest showed that 75% of the pregnant women found the questionnaire easy to understand. Regarding the PSEQ instrument, the identification with the maternal role was the subcategory which showed the highest average, 24.8 (+/- 5.6), while the relationship with the mother had the lowest average 15.4 (+/- 7.7). The internal consistency ranged from 0.52 to 0.89. CONCLUSION: the assessment of psychosocial adaptation to pregnancy in pregnant women is very important during the progress of pregnancy and permits intervention through obstetric-neonatal actions of promotion and prevention regarding the well-being of mother and child.