• Login
    View Item 
    •   Home
    • Massey Documents by Type
    • Theses and Dissertations
    • View Item
    •   Home
    • Massey Documents by Type
    • Theses and Dissertations
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Subjective stress, coping and subjective well-being in women before and after the birth of their first child: a longitudinal case-study approach : a thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology at Massey University

    Icon
    View/Open Full Text
    01_front.pdf (960.1Kb)
    02_whole.pdf (6.080Mb)
    Export to EndNote
    Abstract
    A longitudinal case-study approach was adopted to explore the changes in subjective stress, coping and subjective well-being in women before and after the birth of their first child. Subjects were 16 women due to have their first baby. It was planned to see· them at ten weeks, six weeks and two weeks before the expected date of birth of their baby, and two weeks, six weeks and ten weeks after the actual date of birth. Demographic information was collected in the first session. At each contact semi-structured interviews were conducted and subjects were asked to complete a questionnaire designed to measure subjective stress, coping, appraisals, and subjective well-being. The specific approach was descriptive, and the specific aim was to look for patterns and themes. However, while there were no well-defined hypotheses, it was expected that subjective stress would decrease before the birth, increase in the first month to six weeks after and decrease again towards the end of the study period. The use of coping strategies were expected to follow a similar pattern to that of subjective stress. Subjective well-being was expected to follow the opposite pattern to subjective stress and coping. It was felt that making specific predictions about appraisal emotions would not be productive since it was expected that emotional liability would cloud the data and general patterns would not emerge. Results showed that subjective stress generally decreased as the expected date of birth neared, except for those women who experienced a specific stressor unrelated to the pregnancy as such. It increased dramatically immediately after the birth and decreased gradually as the final contact approached. The predictions about coping and subjective well-being were also generally fulfilled. As expected there were no obvious general patterns for appraisal emotions. Empirical, theoretical, methodological and policy implications were discussed, and suggestions for future research were made.
    Date
    1987
    Author
    Mason, Edward John
    Rights
    The Author
    Publisher
    Massey University
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/10179/14258
    Collections
    • Theses and Dissertations
    Metadata
    Show full item record

    Copyright © Massey University
    Contact Us | Send Feedback | Copyright Take Down Request | Massey University Privacy Statement
    DSpace software copyright © Duraspace
    v5.7-2020.1
     

     

    Tweets by @Massey_Research
    Information PagesContent PolicyDepositing content to MROCopyright and Access InformationDeposit LicenseDeposit License SummaryTheses FAQFile FormatsDoctoral Thesis Deposit

    Browse

    All of MROCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjects

    My Account

    LoginRegister

    Statistics

    View Usage Statistics

    Copyright © Massey University
    Contact Us | Send Feedback | Copyright Take Down Request | Massey University Privacy Statement
    DSpace software copyright © Duraspace
    v5.7-2020.1