Sleep Quality Predicting Perinatal Anxiety among Primigravida and Multigravida

Pregnancy is a period in which a woman goes through many changes and continues with the struggle of adapting and accommodating these changes. The mental, physical and social life of a woman alters through this period and it calls for keen attention. Perinatal anxiety is a concept that has been under researched as the major focus has always been on postnatal concerns and related care. The present study therefore tries to understand better about the perinatal anxiety and considers sleep quality as a factor that could predict perinatal anxiety among pregnant women. The study also taps on the experiences of women who are primigravida and multigravida to understand if this brings about any major differences in these variables of concern. The qualitative study was conducted on a sample of 61 pregnant women of Kerala with nearly equal proportions of multigravida and primigravida. The authors used Sleep Quality Scale (Yi et. al., 2006) and Perinatal Anxiety Screening Scale (Somerville et. al., 2014) to measure sleep quality and perinatal anxiety among pregnant women. The study concluded with the help of statistical reports that being multigravida or primigravida plays a major role in the experiences of sleep quality and perinatal anxiety. It was revealed that multigravida experiences higher levels of sleep disturbances along with higher perinatal anxiety. There is a positive correlation between these variables among pregnant women irrespective of them being primigravida or multigravida, and sleep disturbances proves to be a very major predictor among primigravida when compared with multigravida. Possible reasons, limitations and further possibilities of the study have also been discussed further in the article.