Coping with stress and personality: A study in pregnancies complicated by hypertension

Objective The objective of this work is to investigate the role of personality in pregnancies complicated by hypertension, thru analysis of structure and associations between negative affect and coping strategies, and their role towards psychological distress. Method A cross-sectional study with 343 women, where 192 pregnancies complicated by hypertension, was carried out by employing the following tools: the five-factor model (Big Five), Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21), and Jalowiec's Coping Inventory. Two complementary strategies were carried out: an exploratory approach on the interactions between latent variables and a confirmatory technique. Results Coping strategies seem to be dissociated in the hypertensive group, and these participants tend to use strategies according to their personality, mostly emotion focused, extraversion, and neuroticism. The extraversion model exclusively shows an acceptable goodness-of-fit after a structural equation modelling. A multigroup analysis reached a full metric invariance level for extraversion. Conclusions These results are of interest for both clinical and research settings. Prenatal screening and associated interventions may reduce perinatal negative affective states and related pregnancy complications.