中華心理衛生協會

 Purpose: The pregnancy and postpartum periods are important stages in women's lives. Most previous studies in Taiwan have focused solely on postpartum depression, and lacked an examination of the psychological factors that correspond to positive adaptation. Past research has identified such psychological factors among pregnant and postpartum women in other nations, so we explored whether we could also identify these factors among women in Taiwan. Research method: We conducted semi-structured qualitative interviews with 15 women (mean age 31.4) with low depression (i.e., an Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale score less than 4). Three participants were in each of the 3 prenatal periods, and 3 were in each of the 2 postpartum periods. Results: We analyzed the interviews and categorized responses into the following themes: stress dilemmas during pregnancy and childbirth; positive cognition and attitude adjustment; positive habits; positive perception of social and family support; and relevant interpretations of maternal duties. Conclusions: From these themes, we identified 5 common positive psychological factors: 1) interpreting maternal duties as involving a heavy physical burden, but less of a psychological burden; 2) a psychological orientation to submission to fate or destiny, which functioned as a stress-coping strategy; 3) displaying self-care in response to disharmony in interpersonal relationships along with an empathetic attitude and cooperative behavior; 4) a perception of being respected and supported; and, 5) after becoming a mother, the woman's personally-oriented self transformed into a family-oriented self. Three of these 5 factors are similar to those found in previous studies in other nations, but the 2nd and 5th factors differ from those identified in other nations.