Emotional intelligence and dyadic satisfaction buffer the negative effect of stress on prenatal anxiety and depressive symptoms in Chinese women who are pregnant with twins

ABSTRACT

Background: Pregnancy-related stress in women who are pregnant with twins, may increase the risk of adverse emotional outcomes such as depressive symptoms and anxiety. Possible protective coping resources of pregnant women could be their socio-economic background, their marital relationship quality (dyadic satisfaction), or their emotional intelligence.

Objectives: The study aims at exploring the mechanisms by which protective factors are associated with pregnancy-related stress and adverse emotional outcomes such as depression and anxiety.

Methods and Design: Hospitals in Beijing, China, provided questionnaire data from 134 women who were pregnant with twins. Pregnancy-related stress, anxiety, depression, and three resource factors (socio-economic status, emotional intelligence, and dyadic marital satisfaction) were measured.

Results: The experience of pregnancy-related stress mediated between resource factors and adverse consequences. While some socio-economic background variables had a main effect, personal and social resources exerted a buffer effect: emotional intelligence as well as dyadic satisfaction buffered the negative effects of stress on prenatal anxiety and depressive symptoms, respectively.

Conclusions: A unique mechanism was identified that may explain how protective coping resources are associated with psychosocial stress and adverse outcomes in pregnant at-risk women. Future studies should substantiate this finding using longitudinal research designs.

KEYWORDS:

• Pregnancy-specific stress
• anxiety
• depression
• marital satisfaction
• emotional intelligence
• coping

Acknowledgement

We thank Xiaoli Gong, Yang Jing, and Tianyue Mi for managing the data collecting and cleaning work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China under [grant number 2016YFC10004008].