The Correlation between Spiritual Health and Maternal-Fetal Attachment Behaviors in Pregnant Women Referring to the Health Centers in Qazvin, Iran.

BACKGROUND

Spiritual health and maternal-fetal attachment behaviors are considered as beneficial coping strategies used to adapt to pregnancy. The present study was conducted to determine the correlation between spiritual health and maternal-fetal attachment behaviors in pregnant women referring to health centers in Qazvin.

METHODS

The present descriptive correlational study was conducted on 200 pregnant women referring to health centers in Qazvin, in 2015. A multi-stage sampling was carried out and data were collected in a self-report manner, using the Persian version of Spiritual Well-Being scale developed by Paloutzian and Ellison, Persian version of Cranley's maternal-fetal attachment scale, and a demographic and midwifery questionnaire. Data were analyzed in SPSS-20, using Pearson's correlation coefficient and the multivariate linear regression. P<0.05 was considered statistically significant.

RESULTS

The mean scores of attachment and spiritual health were 95.91±8.92 and 104.15±10.59, respectively. A weak positive correlation was observed between attachment behaviors and spiritual health (P<0.001, r=0.40). Regression analysis showed that spiritual health (P<0.001, β=0.40), religious health (P<0.001, β=0.30), and existential health (P<0.001, β=0.43) could predict the maternal-fetal attachment behaviors.

CONCLUSION

The results showed that a higher spiritual health was associated with an increase in maternal-fetal attachment behaviors. These results suggest the importance of strengthening spirituality during pregnancy as an effective strategy for increasing the attachment behaviors.