title: Life change and psychological distress as predictors of pregnancy outcome.
abstract: An exploratory investigation was conducted to assess the potential utility of objective measures of life change, anxiety, and personality as predictors of labor complications in a sample of full-term, lower-socioeconomic pregnant women without present evidence or histories of serious medical problems. The results of a linear multiple discriminant function analysis indicated that none of the personality or anxiety measures emerged as reliable predictors, but that scores on a measure of life change were able to discriminate between subjects with and without labor complications at a moderate level of predictive accuracy. This moderate level of discriminability was maintained in a double cross-validation analysis. The relationship between life change and the likelihood of complications was in a negative direction, with lower life change scores indicating a greater probability of complications. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed, along with directions for future research.
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007484:Iowa; D008016:Life Change Events; D007744:Obstetric Labor Complications / Q000209:etiology; D011247:Pregnancy; D012306:Risk; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000150:complications