High-Risk Pregnant Women’s Spiritual Experiences
Keywords:
high-risk pregnant women, spiritual experiences, lower-Northern Thailand, qualitative researchAbstract
Abstract:
Objective: To explore spiritual experiences that high-risk pregnant women had during their pregnancies.
Design: Qualitative research.
Methodology: The informants were 14 pregnant women treated at the maternity clinic of a tertiary hospital in lower-Northern Thailand. The informants were recruited by means of purposive sampling. Data were collected from April to October 2019 using in-depth interviews. Content analysis was employed for data analysis.
Results: The informants’ spiritual experiences could be summarised as follows. Firstly, a high-risk pregnancy was regarded as one that resulted from an individual’s karma and, therefore, involved more complication, caused greater danger, and required stricter healthcare practices than a normal pregnancy did. Secondly, major spiritual impacts of high-risk pregnancies consisted of frustration with the increased risk, fear of threats to themselves and their fetuses, worries about diffculties and limitations in their lives, and uncertainty about the outcomes of their pregnancies. Thirdly, the informants’ principal means of improving their spiritual health involved seeking spiritual support and spiritual self-development. Lastly, major factors in
the improvement of the informants’ spiritual health included care and encouragement from their families, sympathy from their colleagues, knowledge of their fetuses’ health, and experiences shared by other pregnant women.
Recommendations: This study identifed the spiritual experiences of high-risk pregnant women and their families. According to the fndings, the process of providing high-risk pregnant women with multi-dimensional care that responds to their physical, mental, social, and spiritual needs is a challenge to obstetric nurses in pursuit of true success in holistic nursing care.
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