An Exploratory Stady of Women's
Mental States after Spontaneaus Abortion
1999 Volume 13 Issue 2 Pages 20-34
Details
1999 Volume 13 Issue 2 Pages 20-34
Spontaneous abortion is the most frequent of all pregnancy losses, but only a few empirical researches have been done in Japan. The purpose of this survey is to explore the women's actual mental states after spontaneous abortion. Forty nine subjects who have experienced spontaneous abortion and agreed to participate the survey were asked by a questionnaire and the Japanese version State-Trait Anxiety Inventory test (STAI). The questionnaire was consisted of three parts: sentence completion, likert type scale of mental states which was developed by authors, and profile.
The feelings after spontaneous abortion were expressed and classified using sentence completionas follows: astonishment, shock, sadness, lonesomeness, fatigue, despondency, emotional instability, minor depression symptoms, unhappiness, sorriness, regret, guilty, feeling of failure, ambivalence between denial and acceptance, and so on. These feelings decreased three months later except a few women, and they expressed the feelings that there was no other way but to accept and wish to the next pregnancy. The four phases of grieving processeswhich is commonly used as a mourning process were entangled in this survey.
The result of the sentence completion was corroborated by the scale of mental states that women were specific psychological state after miscarriage and it was similar with grieving process which is often reported in English literature.
Many subjects expressed self-reproach or self-blame such as: I couldn't do anything for my baby, feel sorry for infant, feel sorry for husband, and feel sorry for husband's folk, feel sorry for colleague because of my absence, and so on.
The average of the Japanese version STAI was significantly higher than the average of the adult women's group. The number of the very high and high group of the STAI is gradually decreased after about three months later.
Japanese women's mental state after spontaneous abortion are confirmed as grief process by Japanese women's real words in this survey.
