ArticlePloS one2023
The relationships of spiritual health, pregnancy worries and stress and perceived social support with childbirth fear and experience: A path analysis.
Article in PloS one, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- The relationship between perceived social support and fear of childbirth in pregnant women: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC psychology · 2025Pooled it
- Perceived partner support during pregnancy and its associations with anxiety, antenatal care utilization, and fear of childbirth: a cross-sectional mediation analysis.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2026Article
- Investigating spiritual health and social well-being and its relationship with the attitude towards childbearing among nurses.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2026Article
- Association Between Spiritual Health, Fear of Childbirth, and Self-Efficacy in Iranian Primiparous Women.Journal of religion and health · 2026Article
- The effect of perceived stress on spousal support and paternal and maternal attachment in high-risk pregnant women: a path analysis study.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2026Article
- The Effectiveness of a Prenatal Educational Programme on Fear of Childbirth Among Primigravida Women:Sultan Qaboos University medical journal · 2026Article
- The Relationship Between Fetal Health Anxiety, Spiritual Well-Being, and Perceived Social Support in High-Risk Pregnant Women in Türkiye.Journal of religion and health · 2025Article
- Fear of Childbirth/Tokophobia: Implications for Childbirth Educators.The Journal of perinatal education · 2025Article
- Psychosocial Determinants of Childbirth Fear Among Asian Women: A Scoping Review.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
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Abstract
backgroundGiven maternal health is a major health indicator, the present research aimed at determining the causal relationships of spiritual health, worries, stress and perceived social support with the fear and experience of childbirth in pregnant women.
methodsThe present longitudinal prospective research recruited 352 pregnant women presenting to selected health centers in Qazvin, Iran in 2021. The data were collected using the Childbirth Experience Questionnaire-2 (CEQ-2), the Wijma Delivery Expectancy/Experience Questionnaire (W-DEQ), the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS), the Persian version of the Pregnancy Worries and Stress Questionnaire (PWSQ), the Spiritual Health Questionnaire, the Socioeconomic Status (SES) questionnaire and a sociodemographic checklist, and were analyzed in SPSS-25 and Lisrel-8.8.
resultsThe mean age of the participants was 28.1±6.8 years. According to the results of the path analysis, among the variables related to fear of childbirth, childbirth experience (B = -0.37, CI:-0.44;-0.22) in the direct path and perceived social support (B = -0.51, CI:-0.58;-0.43) in both direct and indirect paths demonstrated the most significant negative relationship. Among the variables related to childbirth experience, pregnancy worries and stress had a negative causal relationship (B = -0.06, CI:-0.079;-0.043) in the direct path, spiritual health showed the highest significant positive relationship (B = 0.01, CI: 0.008; 0.012) in the indirect path, and perceived social support (B = 0.112, CI: 0.092; 0.131) and the number of children (B = 0.32,CI: 0.30; 0.34) demonstrated the highest significant positive relationship in both direct and indirect paths. In other words, childbirth experience becomes more desirable as spiritual health, social support, and the number of children increases, and it becomes less desirable as pregnancy worries and stress rise.
conclusionAccording to the present findings, various psychological, social, and spiritual factors are associated with childbirth fear and experience. It is thus necessary to utilize appropriate methods and promote training and support to reduce the adverse outcomes of childbirth.
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