| 1. |
- Nasseh Lotf Abadi, Mozhdeh, 1977-
(author)
-
Social support, coping, and self-esteem in relation to psychosocial factors : A study of health issues and birth weight in young mothers in Tehran, Iran
- 2012
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Introduction: Generally, pregnancy is considered to be a positive period in life in Iranian culture. For the parents, it is important to have a healthy pregnancy and, as a result, a healthy child. A sufficient birth weight of the infant represents one of the crucial conditions of a healthy development of a child during infancy as well as later in life. Ongoing research has been carried out regarding various medical factors related to birth weight, but there is a gap in knowledge about psychosocial factors such as social support, coping, self-esteem, stress and mother’s mental health, and various socio-demographic factors including domestic violence, which may lead to adverse pregnancy outcomes such as low birth weight. This thesis aims to provide knowledge to fill this gap.Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted in Tehran, Iran, including 600 young mothers who had delivered in Akbarabadi hospital, one of the main gynaecological hospitals affiliated with Tehran University of Medical Sciences. The investigation included a self-developed socio-demographic form, the Social Support Questionnaire, the Ways of Coping Checklist, Rosenberg’s Self-Esteem Scale, the General Health Questionnaire-12, and a Life Event Checklist.Results: We could not find a significant association between birth weight and mother’s level of education, and there was no substantial relationship between general mental health and birth weight. Verbal abuse was reported by 26.0% of the young mothers, 4.8% reported physical abuse, 5.5% reported sexual abuse, and 1.3% reported all three types of abuse. The abuse-index was significantly negatively associated with satisfaction with social support and with self-esteem.The higher the abuse-index, by trend, the lower was the infants’ birth weight. Weight before pregnancy, current weight, weight gain during pregnancy, and the number of prenatal care visits were significantly positively associated with the weight of the newborn. Mothers who reported having a history of a low birth-weight (LBW) child or were physically abused during pregnancy had infants with significant lower birth weight.The more the pregnant women were satisfied with their social support and the more often they used positive reappraisal as a way of coping, the higher was their infants’ birth weight. The higher the self-esteem, the less often they used escape avoidance and confrontive coping.Conclusion: The results suggest the importance of relationships between a healthy pregnancy and psychosocial as well as socio-demographic factors. Providing pregnant women with social support is a key component for a healthy pregnancy, especially when faced with stressful situations. The number of people available for support did not provide a significant buffering effect on domestic violence (DV), but the perceived quality of social support did. Higher education in the mother and husband, and women’s employment represented protective conditions against the occurrence of DV. Women who reported physical abuse during pregnancy had infants with lower birth weight. Satisfaction with social support and use of positive reappraisal were significantly associated with higher birth weight.
|
|
| 2. |
- Nishikawa, Saori, 1978-
(author)
-
Japanese adolescents' self-concept and well-being in comparison with other countries
- 2009
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Background: In a rapidly changing and increasingly interconnected world, the issue of mental health and well-being among adolescents is one of the important research topics. However, there have been few studies amongst Japanese adolescents that have been published in international journals. Objectives: (I) to make a comparison in selfconcept between healthy adolescents in Japan and Sweden, (II) to address the influence of perceived parental rearing on self-concept and mental health problems among Japanese adolescents, (III) to investigate contributions of attachment and self-concept to mental health problems reported by Japanese adolescents, (IV) to address a comparison of mental health problems and self reported competence in adolescents from Greece, Japan, Russia, and Sweden. Methods: The following self-report instruments were used: Self- Description Questionnaire II (Marsh, 1992), Actual-Ideal Questionnaire (Nishikawa, 2003), Self-Description Questionnaire IIShort (Marsh, Ellis, Parada, Richards, & Heubeck, 2005), Youth Self- Report (Achenbach, 1991), Attachment Questionnaire- for Children (Sharpe et al., 1998), and Egna Minnen Beträffande Uppfostran (my memories of child upbringing) for Children (Muris, Meesters, & van Brakel, 2003). The participants for Paper I were adolescents aged 14 and 15 from Japan (n=144) and Sweden (n=96). One hundred ninety three Japanese students between the ages of 15-19 participated in Paper II and 228 students for Paper III. The participants for Paper IV were 812 healthy adolescents between 15 and 17 years of age from Greece (n=152), Japan (n=219), Russia (n=159), and Sweden (n=282). Results: Paper I showed that Japanese students reported less positive self-concept compared to the Swedish counterparts. The results were discussed in terms of different response style and modesty in Japanese culture. Paper II showed that dysfunctional parental rearing and insecure peer attachment were associated with negative self-concept and more mental health problems. A unique influence on mental health problems from parent-adolescent relationships depending on the gender of parents and adolescents was also found. Paper III showed a mediating role of self-concept in influencing the relationships between attachment style and Internalizing Problems. Paper IV indicated rather small differences across countries in the syndrome scales. Japanese and Swedish adolescents tended to score lower than Russian and Greek counterparts. Some cultural specific syndromes were found. Conclusion: These results reported in this thesis present a general view of Japanese adolescents’ self-concept and the influence of interpersonal relationships in mental health problems assessed by Western self-report instruments. When being compared with other countries, cultural background and response style must be taken into account.
|
|
| 3. |
- Saim, Nor Jana Bte, 1978-
(author)
-
Social support, coping, resilience and mental health in Malaysian unwed young pregnant women and young mothers : Their experiences while living in a shelter home
- 2013
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis is based on four articles. In the first article, questionnaire data from a follow-upstudy (Article I) that aimed to explore social support, coping and resilience as predictors ofmental health in unwed young pregnant women and young mothers during placement in ashelter home were analysed. Nine shelter homes were invited to participate in the study (n ofpre-assessment = 250; n of post-assessment = 79). Percentages, paired sample t-tests, multipleanalyses of variance (MANOVA), and multiple regression analysis were used to analyse thedata. There were no significant changes in social support, coping or resilience between thepre- and post-assessment. The variability in the mental health scores from the follow-upassessment could be explained by the variability in coping, social support and resilience forbetween 14% of the variance in the BDI score and 36% in the GHQ sum-score. However,about 32% of the unwed young pregnant women and young mothers had a BDI score above26 suggesting the occurrence of a depressive disorder at the second assessment. Thequalitative part of the study (Articles II and III) attempted to investigate the reactions receivedfrom their significant others, and how these reactions influenced their pregnancy experience.Furthermore, their daily life experience during their placement in a shelter home is described.Seventeen unwed young pregnant women and young mothers aged from 12 to 18 wereinterviewed. Qualitative content analysis and thematic analysis were used to analyse thetranscriptions of the interviews. Significant others were often perceived as reacting to theunwed young pregnant women and young mothers with secrecy, repression and rejection. Theresponse of the unwed young pregnant women and young mothers to the significant others inrespect of their pregnancy was to feel detached, trapped, unworthy and ambiguous. Theresults of the thematic analysis (Article III) led to three themes: rules and regulations, therelationship with the staff, and the relationship with the other girls in the shelter home. Theresults indicated that the participating shelter homes were often not fulfilling the standards ofshelter homes according to the Malaysian national laws and the United Nations Conventionon the Rights of the Child. In addition, a mixed methods approach (Article IV) was applied toinvestigate the associations between the experiences of the unwed young pregnant women andyoung mothers in the shelter home and their social support, coping, resilience, and mentalhealth. Because of the nominal data, the findings from the qualitative analyses were quantifiedand jointly analysed with the questionnaire data using Spearman Rank coefficient. The analyses were done based on the interviews and survey with 17 unwed young pregnantwomen and young mothers aged 12 to 18 years. The mixed methods study emphasized thatthe unwed young pregnant women and young mothers have poor availability and adequacy ofsocial support and were at risk of developing mental health problems if untreated.
|
|
| 4. |
- Öhman, Lena
(author)
-
Perceived chronic stress, health and cognition
- 2006
-
Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The aim of this licentiate thesis was to examine consequences of chronic stress for stressrelated diseases and to investigate the chronic stress – cognition relationship. In the first study data covering ten years was used from the Betula Prospective Cohort Study (Nilsson et al., 1997). Based on the ratings on a stress scale, matched samples between 40 and 65 years of age were divided into a high and low stress group. The reported incidence of cardiovascular, diabetes, psychiatric, tumor, and musculoskeletal diseases wasassessed five and ten years after a baseline assessment. The incidence of diseases five years after baseline assessment showed no differences between the groups. After ten years, there was a higher incidence of psychiatric diseases in the high stress group as well as a significant effect for tumors. These results indicated that moderately elevated stress levels may have an impact on psychiatric diseases, especially depression, and possibly also some tumor diseases, but it was concluded that prolonged moderate stress does not appear to be very harmful to health in general. In the second study cognitive performance was studied in chronic stress outpatients and matched controls. A battery of cognitive tests assessing processing speed, attention, episodic-, semantic- and working memory was used. Performance decrements for thechronic stress patients were found in episodic memory, particularly in learning across repeated trials, and in tasks requiring divided attention under either encoding or retrieval of words. Performance differences were also seen in aspects of working memory, mental tempo, semantic access (letter fluency) and prospective memory. It was concluded that executive functioning may be suboptimal in chronic stress patients and that letter fluency and prospective memory tests can be useful as clinical tools when evaluating chronic stressstates. Taken together, the findings indicate that there is no clear association between moderately elevated chronic stress and increased incidence of stress related diseases, whereas certain cognitive functions such as executive functioning appear vulnerable to chronic stress.
|
|
