The Effectiveness of Stress Inoculation Training on Sense of Coherence and Psychological Distress in Pregnant Women

Pregnancy, as one of the most stressful life events, leads to physical, psychological, and social changes. Stress inoculation training is one of the effective strategies to deal with changes during pregnancy. Therefore, this research aims to investigate the effectiveness of stress inoculation training on the sense of coherence and psychological distress in pregnant women.

This research was quasi-experimental with the control group pretest-posttest design. The statistical population included all pregnant women referred to Sari’s Imam hospital. 30 pregnant women were selected by the available sampling method and were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The experimental group received stress inoculation training about 8 sessions, once a week for 90 minutes, and the control group did not receive any training. The research instrument included the questionnaire of sense of coherence and psychological distress. Data were analyzed using a chi-square test, independent t-test, and multivariate analysis of covariance.

The experimental and control groups in the pretest stage showed no significant difference concerning the sense of coherence and psychological distress (p>0/05); however, in the posttest stage, a significant difference was observed in the three mentioned variables (p < 0/001).Multivariate analysis of covariance also showed that stress inoculation training is effective on the sense of personal cohesion and psychological distress of pregnant women (p < 0.001).

Based on the findings, it can be concluded that stress inoculation training is a suitable method to increase the sense of coherence and reduce psychological distress among pregnant women.