Adaption of pregnancy anxiety questionnaire–revised for all pregnant women regardless of parity: PRAQ-R2

Abstract

The 10-item Pregnancy-Related Anxiety Questionnaire–Revised (PRAQ-R) is a widely used instrument to assess and identify pregnancy-specific anxiety in nulliparous women. It has good psychometric values and predictive validity for birth and childhood outcomes. Nonetheless, the PRAQ-R is not designed for use in parous women, as particularly one item of the questionnaire is not relevant for women who gave birth before. We tested the factorial and scalar invariance of a modified PRAQ-R2 across nulliparous and parous women with an adapted item to fit both groups of pregnant women. A longitudinal study among 1144 pregnant women (n = 608 nulliparous and n = 536 parous) with two repeated measures of the PRAQ-R2 was used to test for measurement invariance of the instrument. Results show metric and scalar invariance, indicating that the PRAQ-R2 measures similar constructs on the same scale for all pregnant women at two different times during pregnancy. We conclude that the PRAQ-R2 can be used, compared, or combined in a sample of nulliparous and parous women.

Pregnancy-related anxiety: Evidence of distinct clinical significance from a prospective longitudinal study

“…Parity, age at first pregnancy, number of miscarriages, and maternal age differentiated PrA-self or PrA-child from conventional anxiety symptom measures (e.g., from clinical interview). The finding that first-time mothers display more pregnancy-related anxiety than experienced mothers has been reported by others (Huizink et al, 2015); a somewhat consistent pattern of other differential correlates implies that this distinct is not limited to parity.…”

“…The measure is composed of items that are most frequently included across existing measures, e.g. (Huizink et al, 2004; Van den Bergh, 1990); none of the items were based on prior pregnancy and birth experiences, consistent with recent studies (Huizink et al, 2015). Responses were given on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from not at all, a little, somewhat, quite a bit, and very much.…”

“…One of the few factors that may be more closely associated with pregnancy-specific anxiety is parity. First-time mothers may report greater pregnancy-related anxiety than parous women (Huizink et al, 2015); it is not clear if that is also so for conventional symptoms measures, or if the effect is driven by the subset with histories of miscarriage. In the current study we consider if pregnancy-related anxiety and conventional symptoms measures can be differentiated by external correlates, particularly psychosocial stress and pregnancy experiences.…”

Pregnancy‐related anxiety: Re‐examining its distinctiveness†

“…The PRAQ‐R subscales have moderate to good internal consistency reliability ranging from α = 0.76 to α = 0.89 (Arch, ; van Bussel, Spitz, & Demyttenaere, ). For this study, Cronbach's alpha was α = 0.81 for Fear of Childbirth, α = 0.89 for Fear of Bearing a Physically or Mentally Handicapped Child , and α = 0.79 for the subscale Concern About One's Appearance (Huizink et al, ).…”

“…The Pregnancy‐Related Anxiety Questionnaire‐Revised2 (PRAQ‐R) is the revised version of the Pregnancy‐Related Anxiety Questionnaire (PRAQ; Huizink, ; van den Bergh, ). Initially the 10‐item PRAQ‐R was developed for nulliparous women, however a recent revision of one question allows use regardless of parity (i.e., “ I am anxious about the delivery, because I have never experienced one before ” changed to “ I am anxious about the delivery ”) (PRAQ‐R2, Huizink et al, ). The PRAQ‐R2 has three distinct subscales: Fear of Childbirth, Fear of Bearing a Physically or Mentally Handicapped Child and Concern About One's Appearance which provide an indication of three main areas of concern for pregnant women.…”