Women’s fears and attitudes to childbirth may influence the maternity care they receive and the outcomes of birth. One form of antenatal anxiety is fear of childbirth or tokophobia or maieusiophobia. This important issue was not investigated previously in Palestinernrn. The purpose of this study was to assess the prevalence and risk factors for acquiring a fear of childbirth (tokophobia). Cross sectional study was conducted in maternal and child clinics using a convenience sample of 300 healthy pregnant women. The study tools consisted of demographic characteristics, Tilburg Pregnancy Distress Scale (TPDS) and Fear of Birth Scale (FOBS). Translation to Arabic languages and back up translation were completed before conducting pilot test with 10% of sample. Cronbach’s Alpha was done for both scales, result ranged between (0.69 to 0.74). The study showed that using the Tilburg Pregnancy Distress Scale, 20% suffered from an actual tokophobia score was greater than 22 50% suffered from a potential tokophobia score was between 15-21 while 30% their score less than 14. Regarding to Fear of Birth scale the prevalence of tokophobia was 82%. The highest percentage 67% reported positively to items that examined fear of physical, then 64% fear of pain and 62% fear of complication. The majority of them 75% worried about their body image after Childbirth.The associated risk factors among Palestinian women that can cause and increase the severity of antenatal anxiety- Tokophobia with significant P value less than 0.05, were younger age nullipara receiving less support during pregnancy from her husband and family not doing physical activity or exercise worrying and thinking too much about baby and baby’s health . Midwives should establish and inserted as education program during ante natal period aimed to decrease the antenatal anxiety focused on this risky vulnerable grou

Title

International Conference on General Health Sciences (ICGeHeS)

Publisher

International Society for Research in Education and Science (ISRES)

Publisher Country

Turkey

Indexing

Scopus

Impact Factor

None

Publication Type

Prtinted only

Volume

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Year

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Pages

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