Estudio de las alteraciones emocionales y del bienestar psicológico de la pareja en diferentes etapas de la transición a la maternidad y la paternidad

Abstract

Becoming a parent can be a difficult path for some couples. We understand transition to parenthood comprises several stages for which not all couples pass through. We have focused the present investigation on the following stages: the moment in which couples decide to be or not to be parents; the moment in which couples try to have a baby and they discover their fertility problems, getting later pregnancy or not through assisted reproductive treatments; couples that after deciding it they obtain it through natural gestation; and the development of maternity and paternity role once they have children. The general objective of this research is threefold: to know if there are differences between different moments of transition to parenthood in emotional alterations and the possible relationship between anxiety and obtaining pregnancy; to compare the degree of psychological well-being of the couple in the different stages of the transition to parenthood; and to analyze sex differences in each of the groups and in each of the studied stages.The total sample consists of 256 people, 126 are men (mean age = 35.45, DT = 4.11, age range: 26-51) and 130 women aged 30-45 years (mean age = 33.85 And DT = 4.02, age range: 45-25). The sample is divided into five groups: one group that does not wish to have children ("childless" group), two infertile groups of which one achieves pregnancy with ART (group "pregnancy ART") and the other not ("infertile" ), a natural pregnancy group ("natural pregnancy" group), and a fertile group with children ("with children" group). The instruments used have been: State-Trait Anxiety Questionnaire (STAI) (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory), updated Spanish version, TEA Ediciones, S.A., (Spielberger, Gorsuch & Lushene 7th edition, year 2008); Beck Depression Inventory, (Beck et al., 1961), revised version, adapted and translated into Spanish by Vázquez & Sanz (1991) and the Psychological Well-Being Scale of the couple (EBP; Cánovas, 2007). Analysis of the results reveals that it is the "natural pregnancy" group the one with lower psychological well-being in the couple. Anxiety trait is higher in the "childless" group and is also higher in females compared to males taking the sample as a whole. As for state anxiety, there are only significant differences between the "pregnancy ART" group and the "natural pregnancy" group, although there is a tendency of the "pregnancy ART" group to have higher levels of anxiety state than the "infertile" group. Finally, the variable depression (measured only in the first study) reveals that women in the "natural pregnancy" group obtain higher scores than men in the same group. This work gives us evidence about the different dynamics that occur within each of the stages studied. Couples have different needs and, in turn, the peculiarities of each couple make their study truly complex, so knowing them is necessary to propose the most appropriate psychological intervention in each case.