Results
There were 115 pregnant women in each of the experiment
and the control groups with mean age 28 639 and
278 529 years, respectively. Table 1 shows background
details of both groups. Majority of the participants in these
groups were housewives, and majority of the husbands
were civil servants (5166%). Most participants were educated
to diploma and higher levels (6412%). Nearly 80%
in both groups did not have a history of abortion.
It can be seen in Table 2 that before intervention, internal
belief, powerful others belief and chance belief had the highest
mean scores, respectively. Immediately after intervention,
chance belief reduced significantly and internal belief
increased significantly in the experiment group. However, in
the control group, no significant change was observed in any
of the variables compared with before intervention. A significant
difference in depression reduction was observed between
the two groups one month after intervention, indicating the
effectiveness of the intervention programme (Table 2).
According to the one-way ANOVA test, there were significant
correlations between Edinburgh Postnatal Depression
Scale (EDPS) and occupation of spouse (p < 0001), financial
status (p < 0001) and type of delivery (p < 0001) in
both groups. However, Pearson correlation coefficient was
not significant in either group between EPDS and age, andone-way ANOVA between EPDS score and education level,
child’s gender, wanted or unwanted pregnancy, participants’
job (p > 005).
The values of correlation coefficient between EPDS score
and HLC components for each group are presented in
Table 3. The results are indicative of a significant correlation
between internal belief and chance belief with EPDS.