Abstract            Volume:4  Issue-4  Year-2016         Original Research Articles

Online ISSN : 2347 - 3215 Issues : 12 per year Publisher : Excellent Publishers Email : editorijcret@gmail.com

Antenatal anxiety and depression have been known to be associated with poor maternal and fetal outcomes. There is paucity of data from rural areas of India on these factors and their outcomes. Hence we conducted a study to estimate the prevalence of psychological stress and high risk for anxiety among pregnant women in a hospital in rural South India, and to determine the association with various socio-demographic and obstetric variables of importance in the rural Indian context. This was a cross-sectional study conducted among antenatal women using the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10) scale and Perinatal Anxiety Screening Scale (PASS). Women with a score of K10 ≥16 were considered to have psychological distress and PASS score of ≥26 were considered as high risk for anxiety.  The prevalence of Psychological Stress (K10≥16) among the 209 antenatal women in this study was estimated to be 29.7%, with prevalence rate being significantly higher in the second trimester as compared to the third trimester. 64 (30.6%) women had high risk for anxiety Consumption of alcohol by the husband and fewer years of education in husband were found to significantly increase the risk of anxiety or psychological distress among antenatal women. There was a significantly positive correlation between K10 and PASS scores with a correlation coefficient of 0.654 (p=0.0001). With nearly a third of antenatal women in the study suffering from psychological distress and a high risk of anxiety, there is definite evidence for including screening for psychological distress and anxiety during routine antenatal visits.

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