Pandemic-related anxiety in pregnancy
2021-03-11
(Press-News.org) Pregnant women in Japan who responded to an online survey early in the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated higher levels of anxiety compared to women undergoing fertility treatments and to pregnant women in Iran.
The findings were published in the Journal of Affective Disorders Reports.
"The pandemic has changed the social environments of pregnant women and fertility patients," says Tohoku University clinical psychologist Koubon Wakashima.
For example, restrictions in Japan meant that pregnant women have been unable to participate in group parenting classes or travel to their parents' homes to receive traditional childbirth assistance. Medical institutions in the country reported fewer women accessing infertility treatments.
Wakashima and colleagues at Tohoku University, Hokkaido University and the National Foundation of Brief Therapy posted a survey on several pregnancy and fertility websites towards the end of May and the beginning of June 2020. Almost 300 pregnant women and 13 women undergoing fertility treatment responded to a Japanese version of the Fear of COVID-19 Scale, originally developed by Iranian researchers.
Analyses of the surveys revealed that pregnant women in Japan had higher levels of anxiety compared to fertility patients. Their anxiety levels were associated with increased stockpiling and monitoring their own health. Pregnant women who considered social networking services an important information source expressed lower levels of anxiety compared to those who preferred newspapers and TV. Finally, the researchers compared the results of their survey to a similar one done in Iran and found that pregnant Japanese women demonstrated higher levels of anxiety compared to pregnant Iranian women.
The scientists acknowledge that their study has several limitations regarding, for example, the ability to assess strict causal relationships between anxiety and various coping behaviours, and a lack of detailed information on the media content the women were accessing.
Nevertheless, they suggest the results indicate the importance of improving communications that can help pregnant women cope with feelings of anxiety in addition to relaying information on infection prevention.
The team next aims to analyse how fear of COVID-19 varies by occupation and by time of year. They also plan to investigate how one person's fears impact other family members.
INFORMATION:
[Attachments] See images for this press release:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2021-03-11
March 10, 2021 - Kawasaki, Japan: The research group of Deputy Principal Research Scientist Dr. Satoshi Uchida (Associate Professor, Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine) at the Innovation Center of NanoMedicine (Director General: Prof. Kazunori Kataoka, Location: Kawasaki-Japan, Abbreviation: iCONM) reported that optimized nano-micelles can induce efficient genome editing in the mouse brain.
The 2020 Chemistry Nobel Prize-winning technology CRISPR/Cas9 holds great promise for treating various diseases such as congenital disorders and viral infections, by correcting the disease-specific genomic ...
2021-03-11
WASHINGTON--Biological differences between females and males affect virtually every aspect of medicine and biomedical research. In a new Scientific Statement released today, the Endocrine Society called for sex differences to be studied thoroughly to improve public health.
"When we understand the ways sex differences operate at baseline in health, which can either worsen the course of a disease to amplify differences in health outcomes, or protect against it, we can more effectively prevent and treat medical conditions," said Aditi Bhargava, Ph.D., of the University of California, San Francisco in San Francisco, Calif., and the chair of the writing group that authored the Society's Scientific Statement.
For instance, SARS CoV-2 infection, cause of the COVID-19 pandemic, disproportionately ...
2021-03-11
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - March 11, 2021- For people who are overweight or obese and have type 2 diabetes, the first line of treatment is usually lifestyle intervention, including weight loss and increased physical activity. While this approach has cardiovascular benefit for many, it can be detrimental for people who have poor blood sugar control, according to a study conducted by researchers at Wake Forest School of Medicine.
In the study, published in the current issue of the journal Diabetes Care, the researchers re-evaluated the National Institutes of Health Action ...
2021-03-11
Several years after scientists discovered what was considered the oldest crater a meteorite made on the planet, another team found it's actually the result of normal geological processes.
During fieldwork at the Archean Maniitsoq structure in Greenland, an international team of scientists led by the University of Waterloo's Chris Yakymchuk found the features of this region are inconsistent with an impact crater. In 2012, a different team identified it as the remnant of a three-billion-year-old meteorite crater.
"Zircon crystals in the rock are like little ...
2021-03-11
WASHINGTON -- As growing vaccine demand signals a potential turning point in the global COVID-19 pandemic, the nation's health crisis is far from over. One year after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, many adults report undesired changes to their weight, increased drinking and other negative behavior changes that may be related to an inability to cope with prolonged stress, according to the American Psychological Association's latest Stress in America™ poll.
APA's survey of U.S. adults, conducted in late February 2021 by The Harris Poll, shows that a majority of adults (61%) experienced undesired weight changes - weight gain ...
2021-03-11
The U.S. Congress and Biden-Harris administration have a clear opportunity to supercharge global health research and development (R&D) in the wake of a pandemic that has revealed both the sector's chronic neglect and amazing potential, according to a detailed agency-by-agency action plan released today by the nonprofit Global Health Technologies Coalition (GHTC).
"The same core capabilities instrumental to defeating COVID-19 can also defeat diseases that have plagued humanity for generations--such as AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and Ebola--while targeting emerging pathogens of pandemic potential," said GHTC Director Jamie Bay Nishi. "Developing vaccines in ...
2021-03-11
Reforestation could help to combat climate change, but whether and where to plant trees is a complex choice with many conflicting factors. To combat this problem, researchers reporting in the journal One Earth on December 18 have created the Reforestation Hub, an interactive map of reforestation opportunity in the United States. The tool will help foresters, legislators, and natural resource agency staff weigh the options while developing strategies to restore lost forests.
"Often the information we need to make informed decisions about where to deploy reforestation already exists, it's just scattered across a lot of different locations," says author Susan Cook-Patton, a Senior Forest Restoration Scientist at the Nature Conservancy. "Not everybody has the ...
2021-03-11
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on public health is staggering; more than one hundred million cases and two million deaths worldwide. In response, most countries and local governments have taken substantial measures -- such as travel restrictions and physical distancing -- to keep their citizens safe. Both the pandemic and related protective measures pose challenges for ongoing clinical research studies seeking to treat and prevent the world's greatest public health emergencies including COVID-19, but also Alzheimer's disease and other dementia.
In a new paper from the World-Wide FINGERS network in Alzheimer's ...
2021-03-11
DALLAS, March 11, 2021 -- As integral members of stroke treatment teams, nurses coordinate patient assessment and collaborate care among multiple health care professionals to facilitate the best possible outcomes for patients with acute ischemic stroke. Nurses also advocate for patients and their caregivers to ensure they receive appropriate information and education to successfully navigate phases of treatment in the hospital and after discharge. A series of three new Scientific Statements, "Care of the Patient With Acute Ischemic Stroke," from the American Heart Association, published today in Stroke, a journal of the American Stroke Association, a division of the American Heart Association, provide the latest evidence-based guidance ...
2021-03-11
Results published today show it is possible to identify Parkinson's based on compounds found on the surface of skin. The findings offer hope that a pioneering new test could be developed to diagnose the degenerative condition through a simple and painless skin swab.
Scientists at The University of Manchester have developed a technique which works by analysing compounds found in sebum - the oily substance that coats and protects the skin - and identifying changes in people with Parkinson's Disease. Sebum is rich in lipid-like molecules and is one of the lesser studied biological fluids in the diagnosis of the ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Pandemic-related anxiety in pregnancy
