Predictive Effects of Cognitive Flexibility, Marital Relationship Quality, and Meta-worry on Pregnancy Anxiety

Pregnancy is one of the most difficult and dangerous experiences of any woman. The purpose of this study was to predict pregnancy anxiety based on cognitive flexibility, marital relationship quality, and meta-worry. To this end, this investigation employed the correlational study design. The intended population consisted of all pregnant women in Tabriz who were in the first trimester of pregnancy and had medical records in Alzahra Women’s Hospital and Milad Specialty Clinic of Tabriz. A total of 220 women were selected via the systematic random sampling. To collect data, we used Van der Berg’s (1990) Pregnancy-related Anxiety Inventory, Dennis Vander Wal’s (2010) Cognitive Flexibility Questionnaire, Busby, et al.’s (1995) Revised Dyadic Adjustment Scale (RDAS), and Wells’ (2005) Meta-worry Questionnaire. The multiple regression analysis results showed that about 34% of changes in pregnancy anxiety were explained by the model, or rather cognitive flexibility, marital quality and meta-worry (p = .000). Also, the findings the revealed that meta-worry (46%) had the greatest role in predicting pregnancy anxiety compared to marital quality (27%) and cognitive flexibility (18%). Therefore, it is concluded that specialists in the field can make positive changes in pregnancy anxiety by focusing on the present study’s variables among others involved.