Conference Proceedings - School of Nursing & Midwifery - Trinity ...

School of Nursing & Midwifery, Trinity College Dublin: 8 th Annual Interdisciplinary Research Conference
Transforming Healthcare Through Research, Education & Technology: 7 th – 9 th November 2007
Conference Proceedings
The Impact of Time upon the Severity and Distress Scores of Group
III Symptoms
One-way ANOVA shows statistically significant differences in the
severity for all this group of physical symptoms with an increase
over the 1 st and 3 rd trimesters of pregnancy and (Table 27). The
distress scores display a similar trend over the same time periods.
However, three symptoms “constipation”, “sore gums” and “mouth
ulcers” whilst decreasing during these time periods are not
significant (Table 28). Between the third trimester of pregnancy and
the postpartum period the severity scores for two psychological
symptoms show a statistically significant decrease and a further
symptom “sleeping more than usual” reveals constant scores
between both periods. The distress scores for psychological
symptoms also reveal a statistically significant increase over the 1 st
and 3 rd trimesters of pregnancy time periods except for “loss of
memory” which is not statistically significant (Tables 29, 30).
By contrast, in the control group one-way ANOVA of severity and
distress scores for physical and psychological symptoms over a 3
and 6-month time period show no statistically significant differences
(Tables 30, 31, 32, 33). The only exception is the physical symptom
of “sore gums” where its severity shows a statistically significant
lower score at 6 months compared to the 3-month period.
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