Coping with stress and personality: A study in pregnancies complicated by hypertension

Abstract

Objective: The objective of this work is to investigate the role of personality in pregnancies complicated by hypertension, thru analysis of structure and associations between negative affect and coping strategies, and their role towards psychological distress.Method: A cross-sectional study with 343 women, where 192 pregnancies complicated by hypertension, was carried out by employing the following tools: the five-factor model (Big Five), Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21), and Jalowiec's Coping Inventory. Two complementary strategies were carried out: an exploratory approach on the interactions between latent variables and a confirmatory technique. Results:Coping strategies seem to be dissociated in the hypertensive group, and these participants tend to use strategies according to their personality, mostly emotion focused, extraversion, and neuroticism. The extraversion model exclusively shows an acceptable goodness-of-fit after a structural equation modelling. A multigroup analysis reached a full metric invariance level for extraversion.Conclusions: These results are of interest for both clinical and research settings.Prenatal screening and associated interventions may reduce perinatal negative affective states and related pregnancy complications.

The Mediation Effect of Coping Strategies between Personality and Blood Pressure in Pregnancy Complicated by Hypertension

“…This study comprises the Line of Research on Hypertension in Pregnancy. This work partly consists of a broader research effort, with previous results published but with different investigation objectives [ 29 , 30 ]. Thus, a survey was conducted from December 2016 to October 2018.…”